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Dunne Family #4
On Canaan's Side
Longlisted for the Booker Prize, a mesmerizing new novel from the award-winning author of Old God's TimeA first-person narrative of Lilly Bere’s life, On Canaan’s Side opens as the eighty-five-year-old Irish émigré mourns the loss of her grandson, Bill. Lilly, the daughter of a Dublin policeman, revisits her eventful past, going back to the moment she was forced to flee Ireland at the end of the First World War. She continues her tale in America, where—far from her family—she first tastes the sweetness of love and the bitterness of betrayal.Spanning nearly seven decades, Sebastian Barry’s extraordinary fifth novel explores memory, war, family ties, love, and loss, distilling the complexity and beauty of life into his haunting prose.
269 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 4, 2011
331 people are currently reading
4199 people want to read
About the author
Sebastian Barry
52 books2,118 followersSebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. He is noted for his dense literary writing style and is considered one of Ireland's finest writers
Barry's literary career began in poetry before he began writing plays and novels. In recent years his fiction writing has surpassed his work in the theatre in terms of success, having once been considered a playwright who wrote occasional novels.
He has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), the latter of which won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His 2011 novel On Canaan's Side was long-listed for the Booker. He won the Costa Book of the Year again - in 2017 for Days Without End.
Barry's literary career began in poetry before he began writing plays and novels. In recent years his fiction writing has surpassed his work in the theatre in terms of success, having once been considered a playwright who wrote occasional novels.
He has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), the latter of which won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His 2011 novel On Canaan's Side was long-listed for the Booker. He won the Costa Book of the Year again - in 2017 for Days Without End.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 843 reviews
June 12, 2020
Grieving for a Lost Century
Sadness is not easy to write about in a sustained way. It can quickly transform into either sentimentality or resentment. Sebastian Barry knows the rules of writing about sadness. There must be structure to contain its excesses. He uses a day by day diary of the memory of four wars and their accompanying deaths. It must have a point, a purpose. His purpose is preparation for imminent death by suicide of someone who has experienced all she is capable of in life. And it must be, magically perhaps, near universal in its concrete, unique details lest it deteriorate into mere history. Barry is the required magician who can find the general in the most personal.
Violence breeds, among much else, fear. Whether victim or victimiser, fear is a residue of harm done, harm experienced or harm avoided. Fear lasts far longer than the wounds of harm. Ireland is a land which from time to time has been full of fear. And even when they leave it, the Irish (and not just them but all emigrants) carry some of the fear with them. It then shows itself as regret and revenge, even after a lifetime elsewhere, even after generations. And revenge and regret generate betrayal, which creates yet more fear - in the betrayer as well as the betrayed - and therefore more violence. The cycle increases like the strength of a tropical storm as it careens across the ocean to America.
The old know the sorrow of violence and how it is passed on. They can see the hurricane of violence for what it is. But they have no one for whom their knowledge has meaning. Language necessary to tell about what they know does not exist. Their unbearable loneliness is not caused by an absence of others but by the presence of innumerable others who cannot understand the sorrow they have accumulated. Thus the authentic emotion of age is not sadness but despair.
Sadness is not easy to write about in a sustained way. It can quickly transform into either sentimentality or resentment. Sebastian Barry knows the rules of writing about sadness. There must be structure to contain its excesses. He uses a day by day diary of the memory of four wars and their accompanying deaths. It must have a point, a purpose. His purpose is preparation for imminent death by suicide of someone who has experienced all she is capable of in life. And it must be, magically perhaps, near universal in its concrete, unique details lest it deteriorate into mere history. Barry is the required magician who can find the general in the most personal.
Violence breeds, among much else, fear. Whether victim or victimiser, fear is a residue of harm done, harm experienced or harm avoided. Fear lasts far longer than the wounds of harm. Ireland is a land which from time to time has been full of fear. And even when they leave it, the Irish (and not just them but all emigrants) carry some of the fear with them. It then shows itself as regret and revenge, even after a lifetime elsewhere, even after generations. And revenge and regret generate betrayal, which creates yet more fear - in the betrayer as well as the betrayed - and therefore more violence. The cycle increases like the strength of a tropical storm as it careens across the ocean to America.
The old know the sorrow of violence and how it is passed on. They can see the hurricane of violence for what it is. But they have no one for whom their knowledge has meaning. Language necessary to tell about what they know does not exist. Their unbearable loneliness is not caused by an absence of others but by the presence of innumerable others who cannot understand the sorrow they have accumulated. Thus the authentic emotion of age is not sadness but despair.
March 15, 2018
Though this is only my second Sebastian Barry novel I feel I can recognize his voice now. First one I read of him it was The secret scripture and, as I found out later, it was part of a cycle McNulty Family. This one in turn with other titles creates Dunne Family.
Both novels being different are alike or perhaps it was the other way round. Maybe I’ll find accurate words to review The secret scripture yet but now I focus on On Canaan’s Side. Lilly Dunne, well, let’s be exact, Lilly Dunne Kinderman Bere is eighty nine when she starts her account and just buried her grandson, Bill. Every chapter, that starts with subtitle first day without Bill, then second, third and so on to the very end titled night, is a record of a long life against the vast backround of turbulent times. The most important moments of Lilly's life are also key moments in history.
Lilly lived long enough to experience forced escape from native Ireland to America, on Cannan’s side, though it didn’t save her nor her husband. The narrative shifts back and forth so we could see her life in Dublin, in reminiscences we can see all the boys that perished in the Great War along with her brother Will Dunne, we can see Lilly married and then, in rather advanced age of forty something, abandoned with the new born baby, we can see Vietnamese war and living hell that destroyed peace of her son, we can see Lilly mothering beloved grandson to finally witness his participation in the war on the desert and its disastrous aftermath.
Lilly’s voice is like distant echo of previous years. Half nostalgic, half mourning. For the life one had and lost. For the life one could have had if only history didin’t hunt us down. And now for Bill. I am an interloper at the feast of life, I am eating food and drinking drink meant for him as she states.
Lilly is fragile, old woman in the latter part of her life but yet once she had to be strong to outlive the whole twentieth century and its atrocities. We can admire her steadfastness and almost superhuman strength so doesn’t suprise us at all that men here are shown as weaker sex. For they are weaker almost in every way: physically, socially and emotionally.
I thought it was very moving and heart-wrenching story but it felt at times too fragmentary. Though Lilly’s voice is clear and strong the other voices seem a bit muffled if not barely audible. I think I would make do without some threads while others I would love to see more developed. Mister Nolan and his history is one of them for sure. Some explanations feel a bit unfinished though it rests on reader's sensitivity and perceptiveness to fill in the blanks. In a way I think Barry writes over and over the same theme and probably the other tomes of the cycle would deepen and broaden our perspective and understanding.
February 28, 2019
If you've read a few Barry novels this feels formulaic and repetitive. A woman at the end of her long life narrates her story, echoing The Secret Scripture and she has to flee Ireland because of finding herself on an IRA death list, echoing The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty. It's odd he wrote this after those two books as if he was stuck in a groove because it's like an inferior version of both. The narrator rather rambles on in a somewhat sentimental vein. I skim read the last fifty pages because I was bored. 2.5 stars.
December 11, 2017
Sencillamente, magnífico! Después de leer Un caballero provisional no pude resistirme a leer algo más de este genial escritor y, con seguridad, ahora mismo empezaría otro libro suyo. En este caso, nos encontramos ante la historia de una mujer que tuvo que luchar por sobrevivir en una tierra nueva y desconocida como era Estados Unidos. Pero, sobre todo, creo que el escritor quiere hacernos reflexionar sobre el horror de la guerra y sus consecuencias.
October 12, 2019
Wow... what a wonderful book. I loved it. Still sort of speechless because of the beauty and strength of it. I do intend to write a further review, when ready...
September 26, 2011
The lad knows how to unspool a yarn, that is for certain.
If you're planning to read this book, I would caution you against reading long detailed reviews about the plot and characters. The story really needs to unfold at the author's pace in the proper sequence. If you have hints of what's coming, it will dull your enjoyment of the book.
JUST THE BASICS: Lilly is an 89-year-old woman who is preparing to take her own life. Her grandson Bill has committed suicide, which is just one too many losses for her in a long life of great loss. She does not want to linger in a world without her Bill. Lilly spends seventeen days reeling out her life story in what she calls a 'confession.' She tells of her girlhood in Ireland, and then the rest of her life as a wind-blown immigrant in America.
Sebastian Barry is a gifted Irish storyteller. My only reservation about this novel is that there's an almost affectless quality to much of the narration. The most joyful and the most heartbreaking moments are presented with a certain detachment that keeps the reader at a distance from the events. And yet, I read from page 67 to the end all in one sitting. I tend to be a restless reader, and a book has to be a genuine jewel to hold me still for that long. On Canaan's Side is one of those jewels, but it has the muted luster of a pearl rather than the dazzle of a diamond. I found it 'unobjectionable,' as Lilly herself might say.
If you're planning to read this book, I would caution you against reading long detailed reviews about the plot and characters. The story really needs to unfold at the author's pace in the proper sequence. If you have hints of what's coming, it will dull your enjoyment of the book.
JUST THE BASICS: Lilly is an 89-year-old woman who is preparing to take her own life. Her grandson Bill has committed suicide, which is just one too many losses for her in a long life of great loss. She does not want to linger in a world without her Bill. Lilly spends seventeen days reeling out her life story in what she calls a 'confession.' She tells of her girlhood in Ireland, and then the rest of her life as a wind-blown immigrant in America.
Sebastian Barry is a gifted Irish storyteller. My only reservation about this novel is that there's an almost affectless quality to much of the narration. The most joyful and the most heartbreaking moments are presented with a certain detachment that keeps the reader at a distance from the events. And yet, I read from page 67 to the end all in one sitting. I tend to be a restless reader, and a book has to be a genuine jewel to hold me still for that long. On Canaan's Side is one of those jewels, but it has the muted luster of a pearl rather than the dazzle of a diamond. I found it 'unobjectionable,' as Lilly herself might say.
May 29, 2017
It is the writing that makes this book special. Some lines are lyrical, for example when describing landscapes. Some are amusing, for example in dialogs. Some lines express in the most perfect words emotions, both jubilant and sad. Questions about existence and life and if one can even go on are written in words that speak to you. Well at least they did to me! Fear and loss and total aloneness, love and friendship and exuberant joy, betrayal and forgiveness are explored. This book movingly deals with the emotions that make up the jumbled mix of our lives. These emotions touch us through the author’s lines.
We follow an Irish immigrant, Lilly Bere. She is born at the turn of the 20th century. From Dublin she immigrates to the US where she lives in Chicago, Cleveland, Washington D.C. and then Bridgehampton, NY. The book says a lot about what it is to be an immigrant, to be from another place one can never quite forget. The United States, being the melting pot that it is, has many immigrants, each with their own stories to tell. The book is peppered with such stories. Lilly misses the white heather on her father’s hill; for the Greek it is the honey of his homeland that comforts. These stories make the characters unique.
Lilly is 89 when she now sits down to write of her life. This is her last confession. It is given to us so we can think, compare, draw conclusions and perhaps judge.
The wars of the 20th century, the First World War, the Second World War, the Vietnam War and the first Iraqi war, as well as Ireland’s fight for independence were not merely events that happened parallel with Lilly’s own life. They shaped her life and the lives of those she loved. In the novel we are not placed there in the battles; the focus is rather the consequences of war experiences on individuals’ lives and ultimately on Lilly’s life. Each chapter in the book is a countdown of the 17 days following the death of her grandson – Billy. What will she do then?
Being black, put passing as white, is another theme
Look at the title. It leaves a message.
Grainne Gillis narrates this audiobook. I thought she did a tremendous job. She captures different dialects and the characters’ personalities wonderfully. Rarely do I want a narrator to do anything but read the author’s lines; in this book she does more than this, but she does it so pitch perfectly that I loved it. She sings the lines of songs. She expresses perfectly the thoughts lying beneath the author’s lines. She is the delicious icing on a scrumptious cake. Don’t read this book; listen to it instead, narrated by Grainne Gillis.
When I read what this book was to be about, it didn’t particularly capture my interest. It is through the author’s words that the book shines.
We follow an Irish immigrant, Lilly Bere. She is born at the turn of the 20th century. From Dublin she immigrates to the US where she lives in Chicago, Cleveland, Washington D.C. and then Bridgehampton, NY. The book says a lot about what it is to be an immigrant, to be from another place one can never quite forget. The United States, being the melting pot that it is, has many immigrants, each with their own stories to tell. The book is peppered with such stories. Lilly misses the white heather on her father’s hill; for the Greek it is the honey of his homeland that comforts. These stories make the characters unique.
Lilly is 89 when she now sits down to write of her life. This is her last confession. It is given to us so we can think, compare, draw conclusions and perhaps judge.
The wars of the 20th century, the First World War, the Second World War, the Vietnam War and the first Iraqi war, as well as Ireland’s fight for independence were not merely events that happened parallel with Lilly’s own life. They shaped her life and the lives of those she loved. In the novel we are not placed there in the battles; the focus is rather the consequences of war experiences on individuals’ lives and ultimately on Lilly’s life. Each chapter in the book is a countdown of the 17 days following the death of her grandson – Billy. What will she do then?
Being black, put passing as white, is another theme
Look at the title. It leaves a message.
Grainne Gillis narrates this audiobook. I thought she did a tremendous job. She captures different dialects and the characters’ personalities wonderfully. Rarely do I want a narrator to do anything but read the author’s lines; in this book she does more than this, but she does it so pitch perfectly that I loved it. She sings the lines of songs. She expresses perfectly the thoughts lying beneath the author’s lines. She is the delicious icing on a scrumptious cake. Don’t read this book; listen to it instead, narrated by Grainne Gillis.
When I read what this book was to be about, it didn’t particularly capture my interest. It is through the author’s words that the book shines.
March 7, 2018
A Discovered Happiness
A sad book that turns out not sad at all. "Bill is dead. What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking?" is the arresting opening. Grief-stricken at the death of her grandson, Irish expatriate Lily Bere wants only to set down her memories before putting a quiet end to her own life too. Each chapter, headed simply "First Day without Bill" and so on, tells us a little bit about her present life and a lot about her past, until eventually the two meet up. She is living in the Hamptons, in a small cottage fixed up for her by her former employer for whom she worked as cook. Her memories take her back to the age of four, in the early years of the last century, when her father was a senior police officer in Dublin. Associated with the wrong side, unfortunately, for in the struggles for Irish independence, Lily and her fiancé are forced to flee to America with a price on their heads. The "Canaan's Side" of the old hymn, the near bank of the Promised Land after the crossing of the Red Sea, is of course the USA, where Lily and her lover are forced to lead a fringe existence under assumed names. It will be long before she will feel herself truly American—but it is already clear that she ends up surrounded by caring, tactful people who respect and even love her.
Just listen to the exuberance of Barry's writing, as here when Lily and a fellow servant are taken by an admirer to ride their first-ever big dipper in Luna Park in Cleveland:
Barry's technique of adding facts only when truly important makes it very difficult to say much more about the plot. Suffice it to say that it will take Lily from the bloodshed of the Troubles in Ireland to an America that moves from the heady Twenties through the Depression and several wars. All the men in Lily's life will be touched by war, from the First World War that killed her beloved elder brother to the First Gulf War that so affected her grandson Bill. The American assassinations of the Sixties will also play a part, bringing to the surface issues of race that had been a dormant subtext from quite early on. I am not convinced that Barry can quite manage to sustain the story over such a long span; there are some chapters about two-thirds of the way through when the intensity flags somewhat, and a couple of revelations towards the end stretch credulity a little. But his ability to balance the epic with the intimate, as the book jacket rightly claims, is nonetheless amazing.
Barry begins many of his books at roughly the same place, with the agonized birth of the Irish state, but extends them further in time and place with each one. A Long Long Way, for instance, about Lily's brother, addresses the paradox of Irish soldiers fighting for their country in Flanders only to be treated as traitors when they returned home (a point which Barry gently parallels to the plight of Vietnam veterans here). And The Secret Scripture, another memory piece, shows Barry's remarkable ability to get into the mind of a very old woman; that is one of the true joys of this book also. For what might have turned into a despairing wail of grief becomes instead a tapestry of light and wonder:
A sad book that turns out not sad at all. "Bill is dead. What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking?" is the arresting opening. Grief-stricken at the death of her grandson, Irish expatriate Lily Bere wants only to set down her memories before putting a quiet end to her own life too. Each chapter, headed simply "First Day without Bill" and so on, tells us a little bit about her present life and a lot about her past, until eventually the two meet up. She is living in the Hamptons, in a small cottage fixed up for her by her former employer for whom she worked as cook. Her memories take her back to the age of four, in the early years of the last century, when her father was a senior police officer in Dublin. Associated with the wrong side, unfortunately, for in the struggles for Irish independence, Lily and her fiancé are forced to flee to America with a price on their heads. The "Canaan's Side" of the old hymn, the near bank of the Promised Land after the crossing of the Red Sea, is of course the USA, where Lily and her lover are forced to lead a fringe existence under assumed names. It will be long before she will feel herself truly American—but it is already clear that she ends up surrounded by caring, tactful people who respect and even love her.
Just listen to the exuberance of Barry's writing, as here when Lily and a fellow servant are taken by an admirer to ride their first-ever big dipper in Luna Park in Cleveland:
We poised, three beating hearts, three souls with all their stories so far in the course of ordinary lives, three mere pilgrims, brilliantly unknown, brilliantly anonymous, above a Cleveland fun park, with the wonderful catastrophe of the sunlight on the river, the capricious engineering of the tracks, the sudden happiness of knowing Joe….So begins a two-page paragraph, all in a single sentence, as the poise and the rush and the joy and the terror, laughing and crying all at the same time, becomes the pivot point for an entire life.
Barry's technique of adding facts only when truly important makes it very difficult to say much more about the plot. Suffice it to say that it will take Lily from the bloodshed of the Troubles in Ireland to an America that moves from the heady Twenties through the Depression and several wars. All the men in Lily's life will be touched by war, from the First World War that killed her beloved elder brother to the First Gulf War that so affected her grandson Bill. The American assassinations of the Sixties will also play a part, bringing to the surface issues of race that had been a dormant subtext from quite early on. I am not convinced that Barry can quite manage to sustain the story over such a long span; there are some chapters about two-thirds of the way through when the intensity flags somewhat, and a couple of revelations towards the end stretch credulity a little. But his ability to balance the epic with the intimate, as the book jacket rightly claims, is nonetheless amazing.
Barry begins many of his books at roughly the same place, with the agonized birth of the Irish state, but extends them further in time and place with each one. A Long Long Way, for instance, about Lily's brother, addresses the paradox of Irish soldiers fighting for their country in Flanders only to be treated as traitors when they returned home (a point which Barry gently parallels to the plight of Vietnam veterans here). And The Secret Scripture, another memory piece, shows Barry's remarkable ability to get into the mind of a very old woman; that is one of the true joys of this book also. For what might have turned into a despairing wail of grief becomes instead a tapestry of light and wonder:
And I notice again in the writing of this confession that there is nothing called long-ago after all. When things are summoned up, it is all present time, pure and simple. So that, much to my surprise, people I have loved are allowed to live again. What it is that allows them I don't know. I have been happy now and then in the last two weeks, the special happiness that is offered from the hand of sorrow.
November 24, 2017
I started with a few quotations from Barry, to show the poetry of it all, and realized that I would end up quoting most of the book . What is the point?
When I read, it is for myself alone: the closer and more personal the reading, in fact, the less I can speak of it to the outside world; and so, in the end, only the vaguest of impressions become transmuted, eventually, into a paragraph or two on the meaning of what I've just read: a phrase, a sentence to jog the memory and bring back to mind the beauty that I just experienced; or the stone in my heart that he lodged there.
Lilly Bere's life is all of that, as she writes in her 89th year and recalls the forces that moved her from Ireland to America. Forces that moved her: because she did not go willingly; and yet paradoxically, willingly she sailed with her first beau, to escape a sentence of death cast on their lives.
She went neither willingly, nor unwillingly, but ... unobjectionably ... the word Barry uses to describe her plight; and most apt it is. Lilly's entire existence was a long stream of unobjectionable circumstances that occurred to her, or fell on her like fate, or she took into herself, like a prayer.
Tag was a circumstance that happened to her; Kinderman was her fate; Ed and Bill were her prayers.
In 256 pages, Barry manages to hold and round out the history of Ireland and America in a way that ten history books could not do: how the thousands, millions of individual souls that crossed the wide, roiling sea came to rest on stranger ground to build a house and home, without leaving behind the house and home in Ireland; how they encountered others, leading parallel lives who in their minds longed to reverse the voyage undertaken by Lilly: to go home to the heather and the hearth fire, who in their own dreams hear Lilly's echoed life:
... And I am remembering other things, the bell-flowers on the ditches that we could burst between thumb and index finger; .... and the blackthorn blossom in April, a greyish white, and the mayblossom itself in May, a different white, a whiter white, and the gorse as yellow as a blackbird's bill in May also, with its own smell, the smell as near as bedamn to the smell of a baby's mouth after drinking its mother's milk, I do bellieve. And the rooks rowing in the old high trees above Kelshabeg, such fractious birds, yet married to the one bird all their life like good Catholics, and the wren in its tiny kingdoms in the earthen banks, and the wood pigeon offering its one remark, over and over, and where there were storms out in the Wicklow sea we heard the seagulls bickering and badgering on the winds, and in the dense copses the badgers themselves in the night-time, choosing among roots, and the fox both feared and admired, the red renegade, coming down to test our henhouse for weakness in the dark, and the nightingales and the stormy spring the fresh arrowheads of the house martins and the swallows, could even God tell the difference between? And Maud and me, before any of our life took darkness to it, ... going along without a thought for tiredness, it did not exist and when we got to the cottage there was the bucket at the door to pull a drink out of, and a stew sitting on the hearth and bread perfected in the pot-oven on the yard and then tea to kill the thirst, the best drink for thirst and then bright early in the morning to get up in the sun and set to all the tasks. ... I am writing it, I am writing it and I spill it all out on m lap like very money, like riches , beyond the dreams of avarice.
Such is the life of the immigrant soul.
And then, like a current, like a silent underground river that moves beneath it all, the echoes of the war drums: The First World War, The Second World War, Vietnam, The Gulf War ... the thudding echo, like a heartbeat that will not die, from William Dunne to William Dunne Kinderman Bere, all of them, may they rest in peace.
It is possible, Barry suggests, to finally lay down the implements of war. Robert Doherty did, beyond all reason and logic, truer to the human heart than the political one. Lilly Bere did, truer to her compassion than to her fear, even as she steps across the seas again, at the end of life's light.
When I read, it is for myself alone: the closer and more personal the reading, in fact, the less I can speak of it to the outside world; and so, in the end, only the vaguest of impressions become transmuted, eventually, into a paragraph or two on the meaning of what I've just read: a phrase, a sentence to jog the memory and bring back to mind the beauty that I just experienced; or the stone in my heart that he lodged there.
Lilly Bere's life is all of that, as she writes in her 89th year and recalls the forces that moved her from Ireland to America. Forces that moved her: because she did not go willingly; and yet paradoxically, willingly she sailed with her first beau, to escape a sentence of death cast on their lives.
She went neither willingly, nor unwillingly, but ... unobjectionably ... the word Barry uses to describe her plight; and most apt it is. Lilly's entire existence was a long stream of unobjectionable circumstances that occurred to her, or fell on her like fate, or she took into herself, like a prayer.
Tag was a circumstance that happened to her; Kinderman was her fate; Ed and Bill were her prayers.
In 256 pages, Barry manages to hold and round out the history of Ireland and America in a way that ten history books could not do: how the thousands, millions of individual souls that crossed the wide, roiling sea came to rest on stranger ground to build a house and home, without leaving behind the house and home in Ireland; how they encountered others, leading parallel lives who in their minds longed to reverse the voyage undertaken by Lilly: to go home to the heather and the hearth fire, who in their own dreams hear Lilly's echoed life:
... And I am remembering other things, the bell-flowers on the ditches that we could burst between thumb and index finger; .... and the blackthorn blossom in April, a greyish white, and the mayblossom itself in May, a different white, a whiter white, and the gorse as yellow as a blackbird's bill in May also, with its own smell, the smell as near as bedamn to the smell of a baby's mouth after drinking its mother's milk, I do bellieve. And the rooks rowing in the old high trees above Kelshabeg, such fractious birds, yet married to the one bird all their life like good Catholics, and the wren in its tiny kingdoms in the earthen banks, and the wood pigeon offering its one remark, over and over, and where there were storms out in the Wicklow sea we heard the seagulls bickering and badgering on the winds, and in the dense copses the badgers themselves in the night-time, choosing among roots, and the fox both feared and admired, the red renegade, coming down to test our henhouse for weakness in the dark, and the nightingales and the stormy spring the fresh arrowheads of the house martins and the swallows, could even God tell the difference between? And Maud and me, before any of our life took darkness to it, ... going along without a thought for tiredness, it did not exist and when we got to the cottage there was the bucket at the door to pull a drink out of, and a stew sitting on the hearth and bread perfected in the pot-oven on the yard and then tea to kill the thirst, the best drink for thirst and then bright early in the morning to get up in the sun and set to all the tasks. ... I am writing it, I am writing it and I spill it all out on m lap like very money, like riches , beyond the dreams of avarice.
Such is the life of the immigrant soul.
And then, like a current, like a silent underground river that moves beneath it all, the echoes of the war drums: The First World War, The Second World War, Vietnam, The Gulf War ... the thudding echo, like a heartbeat that will not die, from William Dunne to William Dunne Kinderman Bere, all of them, may they rest in peace.
It is possible, Barry suggests, to finally lay down the implements of war. Robert Doherty did, beyond all reason and logic, truer to the human heart than the political one. Lilly Bere did, truer to her compassion than to her fear, even as she steps across the seas again, at the end of life's light.
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October 9, 2019I have read three of Sebastian Barry's books so far, The Secret Scripture, Annie Dunne and this one. In all of them, he shows himself to be capable of creating very memorable characters. I think my favourite of the three is Annie Dunne because Barry hardly bothers with any plot so the spare story is carried along by the interesting main character alone. I had a problem with the unlikely conjunction of circumstances in the plot of The Secret Scripture and that marred for me an otherwise moving reading experience. I very nearly had the same reaction to the plot twists Barry weaves into On Canaan's Side but on reflection, I feel that he managed this one more successfully, that some of the coincidences which occur are more fitting, and the ending just right.
The only quibble I have is the very broad range of the story — not so much the accumulation of war scarred relatives — I think that is unfortunately all too credible, but the veiled allusions in the American part of the story to the Kennedy family, the Martin Luther King references, and the miscegenation theme. I wonder if it isn't his publishers who have put pressure on him to add extra sensational plotting to appeal to a wider audience. He is definitely good at capturing the dilemma Irish people of the early twentieth century faced as the old colonial power began to loose its hold on Ireland. Some had been in the resistance, others had collaborated with the old regime and they all had to work out some entente after independence. There were many tragedies as a result and everyone paid a price, perpetrators as well as victims. I think the paid assassin character in this book is very interesting and his story might have been developed more, but since the account is all from main character Lily's point of view, and unless a convenient diary or some documentation was found later, that was impossible. In spite of those reservations, I may look out for more books by Sebastian Barry.
The only quibble I have is the very broad range of the story — not so much the accumulation of war scarred relatives — I think that is unfortunately all too credible, but the veiled allusions in the American part of the story to the Kennedy family, the Martin Luther King references, and the miscegenation theme. I wonder if it isn't his publishers who have put pressure on him to add extra sensational plotting to appeal to a wider audience. He is definitely good at capturing the dilemma Irish people of the early twentieth century faced as the old colonial power began to loose its hold on Ireland. Some had been in the resistance, others had collaborated with the old regime and they all had to work out some entente after independence. There were many tragedies as a result and everyone paid a price, perpetrators as well as victims. I think the paid assassin character in this book is very interesting and his story might have been developed more, but since the account is all from main character Lily's point of view, and unless a convenient diary or some documentation was found later, that was impossible. In spite of those reservations, I may look out for more books by Sebastian Barry.
August 16, 2011
When I started this book I just read the first 30 pages and did not get back to it until the next day and when I picked it up again I was hooked and could not put it down I really enjoyed this novel. I had previously read The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry and loved it so was looking forward to this book.
This book is long listed for the Booker Prize and tells the story of 89 year old Lilly Dunne's departure from Ireland with her boyfriend Tadg who was a member of the Black and Tans and the IRA have a price on his head. This departure from Ireland takes place shortly after the first world war and tells the story of Lilly's new life in America. The story opens with the death of Lilly's grandson Bill and from here Lilly remembers back on her life in Ireland and America and her adventures include fake identies, the IRA, betrayal, love, loss and hope. Each chapter is narrated by Lilly as each day slowly passes since the burial of her grandson Bill and she remembers her life as she has lived it.
The prose in this book is beautiful and the story is really well told. The first 30 pages of this Novel I was a little fazed as to where the story was going but after the initial first couple of chapters the story flows and I could not put it down. There is a lot in this book and so much that Barry leaves to the imagination. Quite a few issues come up in the book and are not fully explained or dealt with by Barry but I feel that is how real life is and perfer this sort of novel than one where all the loose ends are tied up as this is not a protrayal of real life and I love the fact that Barry leaves plenty to the imagination in this book. This is a short novel and a very easy read.
Ok! then why the 4 starts?(would have given it 4.5 if I could) I did not understand or like how the novel ended, and I can not get it out of my head !! I am looking forward to other readers opinions and I think there will be plenty!! Did Barry do this on purpose? Perhaps, as I can imagine this aspect of the book will make for a great Bookclub discussion and I for one will be putting my vote on this book at my next bookclub meeting.
To sum this book up a great read, a real page turner and a great bookclub read.
This book is long listed for the Booker Prize and tells the story of 89 year old Lilly Dunne's departure from Ireland with her boyfriend Tadg who was a member of the Black and Tans and the IRA have a price on his head. This departure from Ireland takes place shortly after the first world war and tells the story of Lilly's new life in America. The story opens with the death of Lilly's grandson Bill and from here Lilly remembers back on her life in Ireland and America and her adventures include fake identies, the IRA, betrayal, love, loss and hope. Each chapter is narrated by Lilly as each day slowly passes since the burial of her grandson Bill and she remembers her life as she has lived it.
The prose in this book is beautiful and the story is really well told. The first 30 pages of this Novel I was a little fazed as to where the story was going but after the initial first couple of chapters the story flows and I could not put it down. There is a lot in this book and so much that Barry leaves to the imagination. Quite a few issues come up in the book and are not fully explained or dealt with by Barry but I feel that is how real life is and perfer this sort of novel than one where all the loose ends are tied up as this is not a protrayal of real life and I love the fact that Barry leaves plenty to the imagination in this book. This is a short novel and a very easy read.
Ok! then why the 4 starts?(would have given it 4.5 if I could) I did not understand or like how the novel ended, and I can not get it out of my head !! I am looking forward to other readers opinions and I think there will be plenty!! Did Barry do this on purpose? Perhaps, as I can imagine this aspect of the book will make for a great Bookclub discussion and I for one will be putting my vote on this book at my next bookclub meeting.
To sum this book up a great read, a real page turner and a great bookclub read.
September 19, 2020
To remember sometimes is a great sorrow, but when the remembering has been done, there comes afterwards a very curious peacefulness. Because you have planted your flag on the summit of the sorrow. You have climbed it.
And I notice again in the writing of this confession that there is nothing called long-ago after all. When things are summoned up, it is all present time, pure and simple. So that, much to my surprise, people I have loved are allowed to live again. What it is that allows them I don’t know. I have been happy now and then in the last two weeks, the special happiness that is offered from the hand of sorrow.
And I notice again in the writing of this confession that there is nothing called long-ago after all. When things are summoned up, it is all present time, pure and simple. So that, much to my surprise, people I have loved are allowed to live again. What it is that allows them I don’t know. I have been happy now and then in the last two weeks, the special happiness that is offered from the hand of sorrow.
March 17, 2025
Barry potrafi czarować, było tu absolutnie wszystko, czego oczekuję od literatury, a zwłaszcza język, grający wspaniałe zarówno skoczne, radosne melodie, jak i przepełnione smutkiem treny żałobne
January 23, 2024
No i to nazywam powieścią.
January 19, 2024
Lepsze niż się spodziewałem, a spodziewałem się dobrego. Banger, instant classic. Oczywiście zarazem niespieszna, wspaniale napisana opowieść. Barry to magik, serio. Albo najsprawniejszy prestydygitator. No sami sprawdzicie. I brawa dla Makaruk Kai, supi przekład
February 18, 2012
When I first tried reading Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way, I had something of an adverse reaction and put it down; or rather, I threw it down, shouting why the fuck couldn't he just write one simple sentence without all that flowery, roundabout, get-there-in-the-end fluff and nonsense? In other words, there was something of a culture clash as this English boy found the Irish boy's use of language to be quite an alien thing. It wasn't until I heard Sebastian Barry read from the book that I got it, that I had an aaahh moment and realised that, although the words were English, this was a different language, an alien language to me and it was there to be embraced in the same way as, for example, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. Now, you might well think that was a bit slow of me and you'd probably be right; I might never have got it if Sebastian wasn't such an accomplished, charming and theatrical reader of his work. The experience reminded me of when I first read John McGahern's Amongst Women, more or less on publication and while I still lived in England. I loved the book but there were many mysteries to me that weren't revealed until I read it a second time, having left England to live in Ireland. Moran in Amongst Women is a type of man that just doesn't exist in England; hell - the Irish would tell you we can't even pronounce the name correctly. If Moran was exiled to England he'd no longer be the man he was in Ireland.
But now, having read Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture and returned to and enjoyed A Long Long Way, I luxuriate in his language. In his latest book, On Canaan's Side, there are many sentences that stop me dead in admiration: 'The world was made for lesser mortals generally.' How loaded are those words? How - yes - poetic? And yet, still, how alien? Simple language used in a way I'd never dream of. And the measured pace of the storytelling: once again we have some old biddy looking back on her life, just as in The Secret Scripture and, before that, in Annie Dunne. But what a life and what a story to tell: come here, and let me tell ya . . .
Having enjoyed such success over the past few years, there's no need for Sebastian Barry to attempt to emulate anybody, but On Canaan's Side has something of the feel of Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn - the jacket image perhaps or the leaving of Ireland for the Promised Land of the United States. I didn't mind Brooklyn but it didn't exactly blow me away me either. It smacked of striving too hard for commercial success - a kind of Tóibín-Lite - and, while it started with a nod towards William Trevor's Felicia's Journey, it ended up sailing closer to Maeve Binchy's Echoes.
I thought as I read (and loved) Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light that he was maybe trying to 'do a Sebastian Barry' with the language he used - or rather, with the way he used the language - and that this was no bad thing. There was also that south Dublin/Wicklow setting and yet another old dear reminiscing on a long life lived on foreign shores. The story was on a modest, less epic and more intimate scale than, for example, The Star of the Sea, but there was no harm in that and I've a feeling Joseph O'Connor was setting himself a writerly challenge that he passed with apparent ease but which must have taken a lot of very, very hard work.
These Irish boys - they know how to evoke and to suggest, how to transport their reader to a different land in the way that music takes us to different places in our minds, be it with the words of a ballad or a tune or a melody. And I wish I could do it too.
But now, having read Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture and returned to and enjoyed A Long Long Way, I luxuriate in his language. In his latest book, On Canaan's Side, there are many sentences that stop me dead in admiration: 'The world was made for lesser mortals generally.' How loaded are those words? How - yes - poetic? And yet, still, how alien? Simple language used in a way I'd never dream of. And the measured pace of the storytelling: once again we have some old biddy looking back on her life, just as in The Secret Scripture and, before that, in Annie Dunne. But what a life and what a story to tell: come here, and let me tell ya . . .
Having enjoyed such success over the past few years, there's no need for Sebastian Barry to attempt to emulate anybody, but On Canaan's Side has something of the feel of Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn - the jacket image perhaps or the leaving of Ireland for the Promised Land of the United States. I didn't mind Brooklyn but it didn't exactly blow me away me either. It smacked of striving too hard for commercial success - a kind of Tóibín-Lite - and, while it started with a nod towards William Trevor's Felicia's Journey, it ended up sailing closer to Maeve Binchy's Echoes.
I thought as I read (and loved) Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light that he was maybe trying to 'do a Sebastian Barry' with the language he used - or rather, with the way he used the language - and that this was no bad thing. There was also that south Dublin/Wicklow setting and yet another old dear reminiscing on a long life lived on foreign shores. The story was on a modest, less epic and more intimate scale than, for example, The Star of the Sea, but there was no harm in that and I've a feeling Joseph O'Connor was setting himself a writerly challenge that he passed with apparent ease but which must have taken a lot of very, very hard work.
These Irish boys - they know how to evoke and to suggest, how to transport their reader to a different land in the way that music takes us to different places in our minds, be it with the words of a ballad or a tune or a melody. And I wish I could do it too.
September 12, 2011
I really wanted to love this book, with its naive yet poetic, rhythmic voice, but I could not. Instead, doubts clawed at me (what a spry crew of seniors up through nonagenerians we have in Lilly Bere, Mr. Nolan, Mr. Eugenides, etc. -- is it possible that an 89 year old could write her autobiography, including of her various forays from Bridgehampton beachside to village shops, and not have physical frailty, apart from the oddly featured constipation, enter into it? Are there too many coincidences -- people running into each other as if all of the Eastern half of the United States were an Irish village -- or is that the precise point of the book?).
I think these doubts find a place because, despite the sweeping scope (a century of war, immigration, race relations), there is less narrative impulse and characterization than there is poetry. Lilly herself is an enigma, pretty, good -- too good -- she does not have a wicked or ungenerous impulse in the entire book, which makes her trying at the least and ahistorical at the most (an Irish girl in 1920s Cleveland without even a qualm of prejudice, a devoted servant to the great for 60 years without an inkling of class envy or resentment), and long suffering. She is done to, not doing, for nearly a century -- from when her brother's friend asks her out and then gets her blacklisted, and her father sends her away to a foreign land, until the very end, when for the first time in 89 years, we sense agency. This lack of center, as well as the fairy tale Bridgehampton of benign elderly that surround Lilly in her later years, gives the book -- despite its many tragedies -- a dulled. wrapped in cotton sensation, no real pain gets through all the niceness, and all the elaborately metaphoric language. (At one point, the sea viewed from the distance is described as being like a thousand patients waiting nervously in a doctor's surgery -- an odd, incongruent simile, especially in good old Lilly's mouth, but typical of the book, which tends to use many words sometimes for the sheer sake of using them without regard to what Lilly's 90 year old voice might actually sound like).
And yet, I give it 3 stars for virtuoso moments, and for the germ of a bold original story in the tale of Lilly, Cassie Blake, Cleveland in the 30s, Joe Kinderman and Mike Scopello, and the relationships between them all. Those episodes have a heft and a freshness lost in the rest (the theme that WWI and Vietnam drove people mad and wasted young lives is a considerably less fresh topic, and extending that chorus of wanton destruction of youth to the first Iraq war is perhaps a bit of stretch -- but it would have defied sense to make Lilly live on past 100 to see the second Iraq war, which one sensed was Barry's true subject, so Kuwait had to stand in). But the racial and ethnic story of the Cleveland years is new, and actually, for the only time all book, those sections deliver some real tension and punch. Too bad they are only an episode in a book that seems longer than it is.
I think these doubts find a place because, despite the sweeping scope (a century of war, immigration, race relations), there is less narrative impulse and characterization than there is poetry. Lilly herself is an enigma, pretty, good -- too good -- she does not have a wicked or ungenerous impulse in the entire book, which makes her trying at the least and ahistorical at the most (an Irish girl in 1920s Cleveland without even a qualm of prejudice, a devoted servant to the great for 60 years without an inkling of class envy or resentment), and long suffering. She is done to, not doing, for nearly a century -- from when her brother's friend asks her out and then gets her blacklisted, and her father sends her away to a foreign land, until the very end, when for the first time in 89 years, we sense agency. This lack of center, as well as the fairy tale Bridgehampton of benign elderly that surround Lilly in her later years, gives the book -- despite its many tragedies -- a dulled. wrapped in cotton sensation, no real pain gets through all the niceness, and all the elaborately metaphoric language. (At one point, the sea viewed from the distance is described as being like a thousand patients waiting nervously in a doctor's surgery -- an odd, incongruent simile, especially in good old Lilly's mouth, but typical of the book, which tends to use many words sometimes for the sheer sake of using them without regard to what Lilly's 90 year old voice might actually sound like).
And yet, I give it 3 stars for virtuoso moments, and for the germ of a bold original story in the tale of Lilly, Cassie Blake, Cleveland in the 30s, Joe Kinderman and Mike Scopello, and the relationships between them all. Those episodes have a heft and a freshness lost in the rest (the theme that WWI and Vietnam drove people mad and wasted young lives is a considerably less fresh topic, and extending that chorus of wanton destruction of youth to the first Iraq war is perhaps a bit of stretch -- but it would have defied sense to make Lilly live on past 100 to see the second Iraq war, which one sensed was Barry's true subject, so Kuwait had to stand in). But the racial and ethnic story of the Cleveland years is new, and actually, for the only time all book, those sections deliver some real tension and punch. Too bad they are only an episode in a book that seems longer than it is.
December 31, 2012
I think this book wants to be an epic, but it never makes it. There are many wars, races, nations, events, but it just never comes together as a grand story. The major shortcoming is Lilly, the protagonist and narrator. Barry did a much stronger job of creating an aged Irish woman when he wrote Roseanne in The Secret Scripture. There are problems of voice with Lilly. Rarely does she speak as an Irish person, even though she was nearly twenty when she emigrated. The occasional little phrase is dropped as an afterthought. She waxes ecstatic about America, and American evenings, and everything else, beyond all reason, beyond all immigrants. There is little of the longing for home that is part of the emigrant experience. What makes it so problematic is that Lilly is rhapsodizing about a place where terrible things happen to her, repeatedly. At times, I began to wonder if Barry had written a giant satire. Some Canaan. Some promised land. Lilly is almost entirely acted upon. She makes no decisions. She isn't asked. She gets sent out of Ireland. She gets put in a car and taken to Washington. Et cetera. She's unbelievably passive. She sat quietly in the cafe and listened to Joe's story, and I wanted her to go blow his cover. She tended to the dying man when I wanted her to kill him, or at least to walk away. She has a late vision of a dancing bear, and that is what Lilly is--a toothless, dancing bear, in foreign surroundings with a ring in her nose.
This is book three of the Dunne family, and it's an interesting concept, indeed. They aren't sequels. They are overlapping, individual stories. Barry is most successful with Willie's story, A Long, Long Way. It is a very beautiful book, especially appropriate November reading. Annie Dunne and On Canaan's Side are missing something. Barry writes a female protagonist at least as often as a male, but of the five novels I have read, Willie Dunne and Eneas McNulty are surer.
This is book three of the Dunne family, and it's an interesting concept, indeed. They aren't sequels. They are overlapping, individual stories. Barry is most successful with Willie's story, A Long, Long Way. It is a very beautiful book, especially appropriate November reading. Annie Dunne and On Canaan's Side are missing something. Barry writes a female protagonist at least as often as a male, but of the five novels I have read, Willie Dunne and Eneas McNulty are surer.
December 9, 2017
I've found another author of whom I want to read more. I see now that this is part of a series, but I think it is a series by GR standards, in that some of the people in the 4 novels appear in the other novels. At least I hope that is the case, because this is the 4th in the series and I'm hoping that they are all stand alone novels.
This is a journal of sorts, so a first person narrative. It is one undertaken only upon the death of 89-year old Lilly Bere's grandson. In the first pages we know this is to be the memory of her life, but that she intends to take her own life when she has finished writing it down. We may be immune to typhoid, tetanus, chicken-pox, diphtheria, but never memory. There is no inoculation against that. She has sad memories.
I want to say the prose is good, but it probably just fits Lilly's characterization. Frankly, I never thought much about the prose, which I always do, so it must be that it is neither too simplistic nor too complex. There is really only the one good characterization of Lilly, and that, of course what she lets us see of herself. But, as she didn't live a life without others, of course we do have glimpses into other lives and characterizations.
I want to give this 5-stars, but I'm not going to. In my earlier years being a GR member, I probably would have. I did not know then how much good literature the GR community would reveal to me. This is quite good, but somehow it is missing that last bit. And so it sits with a few others at the very tip top of the 4-star group.
This is a journal of sorts, so a first person narrative. It is one undertaken only upon the death of 89-year old Lilly Bere's grandson. In the first pages we know this is to be the memory of her life, but that she intends to take her own life when she has finished writing it down. We may be immune to typhoid, tetanus, chicken-pox, diphtheria, but never memory. There is no inoculation against that. She has sad memories.
I want to say the prose is good, but it probably just fits Lilly's characterization. Frankly, I never thought much about the prose, which I always do, so it must be that it is neither too simplistic nor too complex. There is really only the one good characterization of Lilly, and that, of course what she lets us see of herself. But, as she didn't live a life without others, of course we do have glimpses into other lives and characterizations.
I want to give this 5-stars, but I'm not going to. In my earlier years being a GR member, I probably would have. I did not know then how much good literature the GR community would reveal to me. This is quite good, but somehow it is missing that last bit. And so it sits with a few others at the very tip top of the 4-star group.
January 31, 2013
I love to cook. I do. I have a binder where I carry recipes and notes. I lug it from its shelf. A history of sorts and an old friend who soothes. I may have to add this advice, spoken to the main character in this wonderful book:
'Heat is how that pot thinks, Lilly. It is like my grandma singing a lullaby, not too loud so you keep sleep away, not too soft and baby can't hear the words. Try and hear the heat, Lilly. Hear the pot thinking. You hear it, you hear it? It's there. You will. And when you do, you'll be able to do any sauce in the world.'
Love that, as it's true enough.
This book visits once again the Dunne family which Barry has mined in his previous works. So, he necessarily demands comparison. Thinking back, I liked Annie Dunne and A Long, Long Way the best. This, and A Secret Scripture, utilized coincidence and contrivance a bit too much in the plot. For me, anyhow, the sauce was a bit too thick.
Here, we get a meditation of the soldier, returning from war. It's a worthwhile reflection, because we should all think of returning soldiers. We should.
'The war did something to me, Ma,' he said.
'I know, son,' I said.
'I can't find the end of the string. I can't remember the tune.'
Think of that as you stir the roux.
'Heat is how that pot thinks, Lilly. It is like my grandma singing a lullaby, not too loud so you keep sleep away, not too soft and baby can't hear the words. Try and hear the heat, Lilly. Hear the pot thinking. You hear it, you hear it? It's there. You will. And when you do, you'll be able to do any sauce in the world.'
Love that, as it's true enough.
This book visits once again the Dunne family which Barry has mined in his previous works. So, he necessarily demands comparison. Thinking back, I liked Annie Dunne and A Long, Long Way the best. This, and A Secret Scripture, utilized coincidence and contrivance a bit too much in the plot. For me, anyhow, the sauce was a bit too thick.
Here, we get a meditation of the soldier, returning from war. It's a worthwhile reflection, because we should all think of returning soldiers. We should.
'The war did something to me, Ma,' he said.
'I know, son,' I said.
'I can't find the end of the string. I can't remember the tune.'
Think of that as you stir the roux.
October 2, 2011
3.5 Beautiful writing and so descriptive with the narrator a 89 yr. old woman, heartbroken after the suicide of her grandson. Very slow paced though and a lot of back and forth between her early childhood in Ireland and her present life. Don't think I was in the mood for a slow paced book and think this affected my rating.
February 26, 2015
Sometimes I read a book in e-book format and I really wish I had
read it in paperback just so I can look at it on my bookshelf
from time to time and and remember how much I enjoyed it.
This is one of those books.
I enjoy Sebastian Barry's books so much.
He is such a great storyteller.
read it in paperback just so I can look at it on my bookshelf
from time to time and and remember how much I enjoyed it.
This is one of those books.
I enjoy Sebastian Barry's books so much.
He is such a great storyteller.
October 27, 2015
A melancholy Irish story, beautifully written.
February 25, 2024
Jeśli książka zaczyna się w ten sposób: „Billa nie ma. Jaki odgłos wydaje pękające osiemdziesięciodziewięcioletnie serce? Przypuszczalnie niewiele głośniejszy od ciszy, na pewno słaby, ledwie słyszalny” to nie ma innej możliwości, muszę ją pokochać.
Mieszkająca w Stanach narratorka Lily właśnie straciła wnuka, ale żeby opowiedzieć tę historię musi wrócić do korzeni, do samego początku. A zaczęło się jeszcze w Irlandii, z której musiała nagle uciekać przez wojnę domową i miłość.
No właśnie, i ta wojna i miłość oraz strata i tęsknota będą osią jej życia ciągle do niej powracająca.
Czytałam że ściśniętym gardłem i wzbierającym szlochem i w obawie co jeszcze się wydarzy, jaki zwrot akcji zaserwuje swojej bohaterce Barry. Ale fabuła to jedno, jestem też ogromną fanką tego jak pisze autor, jakich fraz używa, jak jednym krótkim zdaniem potrafi wywołać dreszcze z emocji. Bo czytając na przykład: „wojna mi coś zrobiła, mamo” rozpadłam się na kawałki. Podobnie gdy pisze o miłości „która przykłada ręce do szyi i zaczyna ściskać. Która wali w serce wściekłym młotem, nie przestając ani na chwilę, aż biedny mięsień zaczyna trzepotać z rozpaczy jak ryba wyrzucona na ląd”. I jak miałam nie płakać czytając: „To była krew. Krew człowieka, którego właśnie w chwili, kiedy mnie opuścił, zaczęłam kochać”.
Nic sensownego już nie napiszę. Kocham, uwielbiam, dziękuję
„Wojenko, wojenko
Cóżeś Ty za pani
Że za tobą idą, że za Tobą idą chłopcy malowani?”
Mieszkająca w Stanach narratorka Lily właśnie straciła wnuka, ale żeby opowiedzieć tę historię musi wrócić do korzeni, do samego początku. A zaczęło się jeszcze w Irlandii, z której musiała nagle uciekać przez wojnę domową i miłość.
No właśnie, i ta wojna i miłość oraz strata i tęsknota będą osią jej życia ciągle do niej powracająca.
Czytałam że ściśniętym gardłem i wzbierającym szlochem i w obawie co jeszcze się wydarzy, jaki zwrot akcji zaserwuje swojej bohaterce Barry. Ale fabuła to jedno, jestem też ogromną fanką tego jak pisze autor, jakich fraz używa, jak jednym krótkim zdaniem potrafi wywołać dreszcze z emocji. Bo czytając na przykład: „wojna mi coś zrobiła, mamo” rozpadłam się na kawałki. Podobnie gdy pisze o miłości „która przykłada ręce do szyi i zaczyna ściskać. Która wali w serce wściekłym młotem, nie przestając ani na chwilę, aż biedny mięsień zaczyna trzepotać z rozpaczy jak ryba wyrzucona na ląd”. I jak miałam nie płakać czytając: „To była krew. Krew człowieka, którego właśnie w chwili, kiedy mnie opuścił, zaczęłam kochać”.
Nic sensownego już nie napiszę. Kocham, uwielbiam, dziękuję
„Wojenko, wojenko
Cóżeś Ty za pani
Że za tobą idą, że za Tobą idą chłopcy malowani?”
December 25, 2011
I guess I'm alone in not liking this book. First, what everyone seems to think of a "lyrical" language is, to me, run on sentences that lose the point as they ramble. More times than once I had to stop and think "what on earth is the author getting at here?". Second, the strange, rambling plot contrivances that seemed to appear and disappear without resolution...the serial killer? why was Joe's car at the location of the murders (or did the "lyrical" language cause me to miss some key revelation)?, the roller coaster?
I love books that tell a good story, and I suspect there is a good story hidden in this one...I just couldn't find it for the waxing poetic.
I love books that tell a good story, and I suspect there is a good story hidden in this one...I just couldn't find it for the waxing poetic.
February 19, 2012
I know a lot of people who weren’t familiar with Sebastian Barry’s work until the publication of the Booker shortlisted The Secret Scripture. Barry, however, has been around for quite some time. He’s written five novels now, a host of plays, and three poetry collections, and he’s collected several awards for his writing including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Independent Bookseller’s Prize, and the Irish Book Awards Prize for “Best Novel.” Those of us who’re familiar with his work know that Barry writes primarily about two families – the McNultys and the Dunnes. The Secret Scripture, the book that immediately preceded this one, revolved around Roseanne McNulty Clear as she neared her one hundredth birthday. On Canaan’s Side, however, which was also shortlisted for the Booker, revolves around a member of the Dunne family. The Dunnes, first heard from in what is probably Barry’s most loved play and the cornerstone of his work, “The Steward of Christendom” are a family of Irish loyalists whose only sin is being on the losing side of the Troubles of 1916-22. “The Steward of Christendom” explores the life of Thomas Dunne, a “Castle Catholic,” and the chief superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan Police under the British. A widower, Thomas raised one son, Willie, whose story is told in Barry’s first Booker shortlisted novel, A Long, Long Way, and three daughters, Annie, Maud, and Lilly. Annie’s story was told in the beautiful Annie Dunne, and it’s Lilly whose story is told in On Canaan’s Side.
As the book opens, eighty-nine-year-old Lilly Dunne Bere is mourning the suicide of her grandson, Bill, who she raised from the age of two, and, as she now finds herself unable to face life without him, she’s writing her memoirs in preparation for her own suicide. She lets us know immediately that she’s come undone with grief:
Grief: The feeling of it is like a landscape engulfed in floodwater in the pitch darkness, and everything, hearth and byre, animal and human, terrified and threatened. It is as if someone, some great agency, some CIA of the heavens, knew well the little mechanism that I am, and how it is wrapped and fixed, and has the booklet or manual to undo me, and cog by cog and wire by wire is doing so, with no intention ever to put me back together again....
On Canaan’s Side is going to be compared with Barry’s previous book, The Secret Scripture simply because both books feature an elderly protagonist who’s intent on setting down the story of her life. In actuality, other than the above, I didn’t find the books at all alike. Reading On Canaan’s Side was a very different experience for me than reading The Secret Scripture, though I loved both books. And Roseanne McNulty Clear, the protagonist of The Secret Scripture is a very different woman than Lilly Dunne Bere. I’m not usually a fan of the memoirist who’s setting everything down for posterity, but Sebastian Barry is one of the few authors writing today – or any time, really – who can make anything work, and make it work beautifully.
The structure of the book is a simple one. It’s divided into seventeen chapters, each chapter narrated by Lilly in more or less linear fashion, and each one marking one more day since Lilly buried her grandson, Bill. The chapters are simply titled – “First Day Without Bill,’ “Second Day Without Bill,” etc., until we reach “Seventeenth Day Without Bill.”
Like Roseanne in The Secret Scripture, Lilly is an intelligent, articulate, sensitive, and poetic narrator, who has a fascinating story to tell, though she seems a bit more emotional than Roseanne. A woman who came of age in Wicklow, Ireland during the Troubles that began with the Easter Rising in 1916, Lilly’s fiancé was Tadg Bere, a man who’d known Willie Dunne in Belgium, and who served in the “Black and Tans” after his return home. When Lilly’s father learns there’s a price on Tadg’s head – and by extension, Lilly’s – he arranges for the pair to flee Ireland forever and hopefully, make a new life in the relative safety of the United States, on Canaan’s side.
Although Tadg and Lilly have plans in the US, life, as most of us know, rarely conforms to the decisions we’ve made for it. As Lilly and her story move from Chicago to Cleveland to Long Island, Barry makes it clear that Lilly – that none of us, really – can flee from the consequences and repercussions of our history.
Although Lilly comes from a background steeped in Irish history, it’s American history (both World Wars, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the civil rights movement, the political assassinations of the 60s) that forms the backdrop of this book, though the book, itself, is intimate and personal and Barry’s touch is light when writing about politics.
Having lost almost every man she ever cared about to war, Lilly becomes a symbol of the devastating effects of war on those who are left behind. To Barry’s credit, his strong anti-war message doesn’t feel like a message at all. There’s nothing didactic about this book. Barry is far to empathetic for that. So skillful is Barry in the creation of his characters, and so honest and heartfelt is Lilly’s raw grief that the reader is immediately pulled into her story. And Lilly grieves not only for those she’s lost, but for all those who have been lost, and all those who have suffered losses:
Greece, America, Arabia, Ireland. Home places. Nowhere on earth is not a home place. The calf returns to where it got the milk. Nowhere is a foreign place. It is home for someone, and therefore us all.
Sebastian Barry, of course, began his career as a poet, and part of this wondrous book’s power lies in the power of Barry’s language. His lyrical prose is filled with hypnotic rhythms, perfect details, and vivid images. He knows exactly what to write to evoke the emotional reaction in the reader he wants:
But there was something tugging, tugging at me now, Lilly says at one point, some intimation, like a drop of lemon in a jug of milk, to sour it for the soda bread.
This concentration on just the right detail ensures that On Canaan’s Side will be an intense and immersive read, and one in which the most brutal events of the book will be diffused somewhat by a dreadful and beautiful strangeness. Barry, himself, has defended his intense poeticism: If you listen carefully for how people are talking to you in Ireland, in certain districts, it is quite elaborate, there is a strangeness to it.
This is, without a doubt, the most beautifully written novel I’ve ever read, and, for all its poetry and lyricism, to its enormous credit, I never found it overwritten. In attempting to convey the depth of her grief at her grandson’s death, Lilly writes:
What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking? It might not be much more than silence, and certainly a small slight sound.
Lilly’s voice, in Barry’s sure hand, is a radiant Irish voice. This is Lilly as she begins to describe her small house in Cleveland, Ohio, where she lived in the 1930s:
Our little house had a view of the lake, just. You had to crane your neck, and all you saw were factories and jetties, but it was there, the water. The lake had its own aroma, from a hundred ingredients, mixed by the god of that lake. There was great soothing in that smell.
And, when remembering the heathery white hills of her Irish girlhood, Lilly, herself, becomes caught up in Barry’s intense lyricism, his poetic cadences:
I am writing it, I am writing it, and I spill it all out on my lap like very money, like riches, beyond the dreams of avarice.
At one point, Lilly says her heart ...lifted like a pheasant from scrub…its wings utterly opened in fright and exulting. And, when describing the whole of her life, she writes: My years have no width or length, have no dimension at all, just the downturn of a bird’s wings. So quick.
Lilly’s story is, primarily, a story of exile, suffering, and downright horror, though it’s shot through with glittering strands of beauty, wonder, and tenderness that tug at the reader’s heart. Sometimes, there are even brief glimmers of happiness. I’m thinking, in particular, of a five-hundred-word sentence that recreates the uphill climb and the downhill rush of a rollercoaster at Luna Park on which Lilly rides with her friend, Cassie Blake and a Cleveland police officer, Joe Kinderman, and also describes how Lilly feels about her friends. I heard Sebastian Barry, himself, read this section, and the power of his words is nothing short of tremendous, making it impossible for a reader with a heart to come away from this book dry-eyed.
For the most part, I’ve avoided a plot summary. It would only be fair to let Lilly – and Barry – tell you the details of Lilly’s life. On Canaan’s Side is not a comforting read, and it’s not sentimental. In fact, Barry eschews sentimentality. There are, he says, some Irish, and even more Irish Americans, who cherish a sentimental view of Ireland, one that really has little to do with Ireland’s history, especially the bloodshed of the twentieth century.
If you’ve read many reviews of this book, you’ve no doubt read about a plot twist near the book’s end. It’s surprising – not shocking, but surprising – and I think it’s entirely credible. I felt the book was enhanced by its inclusion.
Most wrongs are never righted. The so-called “sins of the father” continue to reverberate down the ages and visit tragedies on the sons. Sebastian Barry’s vision, as I’ve interpreted it, is to expose those unrighted wrongs, and, with the healing balm of language begin to bring light into the darkness. He searches out memories, memories in which “a measure of tragedy is stitched into everything if you follow the thread long through.”
I don’t believe anyone who reads this book will soon forget Lilly Dunne Bere or the events that made up her extraordinary life. This book affected me like no other ever has. If you love literature, and if you love what literature can do, you need to read this book.
5/5
Recommended: Without reservation. This is undoubtedly the most beautifully written book I’ve ever read. However, lest I’ve dwelt on the book’s language too long, let me assure you that the story of Lilly Dunne Bere is a compelling one. Barry does not, in any of his books, sacrifice plot for poetry.
As the book opens, eighty-nine-year-old Lilly Dunne Bere is mourning the suicide of her grandson, Bill, who she raised from the age of two, and, as she now finds herself unable to face life without him, she’s writing her memoirs in preparation for her own suicide. She lets us know immediately that she’s come undone with grief:
Grief: The feeling of it is like a landscape engulfed in floodwater in the pitch darkness, and everything, hearth and byre, animal and human, terrified and threatened. It is as if someone, some great agency, some CIA of the heavens, knew well the little mechanism that I am, and how it is wrapped and fixed, and has the booklet or manual to undo me, and cog by cog and wire by wire is doing so, with no intention ever to put me back together again....
On Canaan’s Side is going to be compared with Barry’s previous book, The Secret Scripture simply because both books feature an elderly protagonist who’s intent on setting down the story of her life. In actuality, other than the above, I didn’t find the books at all alike. Reading On Canaan’s Side was a very different experience for me than reading The Secret Scripture, though I loved both books. And Roseanne McNulty Clear, the protagonist of The Secret Scripture is a very different woman than Lilly Dunne Bere. I’m not usually a fan of the memoirist who’s setting everything down for posterity, but Sebastian Barry is one of the few authors writing today – or any time, really – who can make anything work, and make it work beautifully.
The structure of the book is a simple one. It’s divided into seventeen chapters, each chapter narrated by Lilly in more or less linear fashion, and each one marking one more day since Lilly buried her grandson, Bill. The chapters are simply titled – “First Day Without Bill,’ “Second Day Without Bill,” etc., until we reach “Seventeenth Day Without Bill.”
Like Roseanne in The Secret Scripture, Lilly is an intelligent, articulate, sensitive, and poetic narrator, who has a fascinating story to tell, though she seems a bit more emotional than Roseanne. A woman who came of age in Wicklow, Ireland during the Troubles that began with the Easter Rising in 1916, Lilly’s fiancé was Tadg Bere, a man who’d known Willie Dunne in Belgium, and who served in the “Black and Tans” after his return home. When Lilly’s father learns there’s a price on Tadg’s head – and by extension, Lilly’s – he arranges for the pair to flee Ireland forever and hopefully, make a new life in the relative safety of the United States, on Canaan’s side.
Although Tadg and Lilly have plans in the US, life, as most of us know, rarely conforms to the decisions we’ve made for it. As Lilly and her story move from Chicago to Cleveland to Long Island, Barry makes it clear that Lilly – that none of us, really – can flee from the consequences and repercussions of our history.
Although Lilly comes from a background steeped in Irish history, it’s American history (both World Wars, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the civil rights movement, the political assassinations of the 60s) that forms the backdrop of this book, though the book, itself, is intimate and personal and Barry’s touch is light when writing about politics.
Having lost almost every man she ever cared about to war, Lilly becomes a symbol of the devastating effects of war on those who are left behind. To Barry’s credit, his strong anti-war message doesn’t feel like a message at all. There’s nothing didactic about this book. Barry is far to empathetic for that. So skillful is Barry in the creation of his characters, and so honest and heartfelt is Lilly’s raw grief that the reader is immediately pulled into her story. And Lilly grieves not only for those she’s lost, but for all those who have been lost, and all those who have suffered losses:
Greece, America, Arabia, Ireland. Home places. Nowhere on earth is not a home place. The calf returns to where it got the milk. Nowhere is a foreign place. It is home for someone, and therefore us all.
Sebastian Barry, of course, began his career as a poet, and part of this wondrous book’s power lies in the power of Barry’s language. His lyrical prose is filled with hypnotic rhythms, perfect details, and vivid images. He knows exactly what to write to evoke the emotional reaction in the reader he wants:
But there was something tugging, tugging at me now, Lilly says at one point, some intimation, like a drop of lemon in a jug of milk, to sour it for the soda bread.
This concentration on just the right detail ensures that On Canaan’s Side will be an intense and immersive read, and one in which the most brutal events of the book will be diffused somewhat by a dreadful and beautiful strangeness. Barry, himself, has defended his intense poeticism: If you listen carefully for how people are talking to you in Ireland, in certain districts, it is quite elaborate, there is a strangeness to it.
This is, without a doubt, the most beautifully written novel I’ve ever read, and, for all its poetry and lyricism, to its enormous credit, I never found it overwritten. In attempting to convey the depth of her grief at her grandson’s death, Lilly writes:
What is the sound of an eighty-nine-year-old heart breaking? It might not be much more than silence, and certainly a small slight sound.
Lilly’s voice, in Barry’s sure hand, is a radiant Irish voice. This is Lilly as she begins to describe her small house in Cleveland, Ohio, where she lived in the 1930s:
Our little house had a view of the lake, just. You had to crane your neck, and all you saw were factories and jetties, but it was there, the water. The lake had its own aroma, from a hundred ingredients, mixed by the god of that lake. There was great soothing in that smell.
And, when remembering the heathery white hills of her Irish girlhood, Lilly, herself, becomes caught up in Barry’s intense lyricism, his poetic cadences:
I am writing it, I am writing it, and I spill it all out on my lap like very money, like riches, beyond the dreams of avarice.
At one point, Lilly says her heart ...lifted like a pheasant from scrub…its wings utterly opened in fright and exulting. And, when describing the whole of her life, she writes: My years have no width or length, have no dimension at all, just the downturn of a bird’s wings. So quick.
Lilly’s story is, primarily, a story of exile, suffering, and downright horror, though it’s shot through with glittering strands of beauty, wonder, and tenderness that tug at the reader’s heart. Sometimes, there are even brief glimmers of happiness. I’m thinking, in particular, of a five-hundred-word sentence that recreates the uphill climb and the downhill rush of a rollercoaster at Luna Park on which Lilly rides with her friend, Cassie Blake and a Cleveland police officer, Joe Kinderman, and also describes how Lilly feels about her friends. I heard Sebastian Barry, himself, read this section, and the power of his words is nothing short of tremendous, making it impossible for a reader with a heart to come away from this book dry-eyed.
For the most part, I’ve avoided a plot summary. It would only be fair to let Lilly – and Barry – tell you the details of Lilly’s life. On Canaan’s Side is not a comforting read, and it’s not sentimental. In fact, Barry eschews sentimentality. There are, he says, some Irish, and even more Irish Americans, who cherish a sentimental view of Ireland, one that really has little to do with Ireland’s history, especially the bloodshed of the twentieth century.
If you’ve read many reviews of this book, you’ve no doubt read about a plot twist near the book’s end. It’s surprising – not shocking, but surprising – and I think it’s entirely credible. I felt the book was enhanced by its inclusion.
Most wrongs are never righted. The so-called “sins of the father” continue to reverberate down the ages and visit tragedies on the sons. Sebastian Barry’s vision, as I’ve interpreted it, is to expose those unrighted wrongs, and, with the healing balm of language begin to bring light into the darkness. He searches out memories, memories in which “a measure of tragedy is stitched into everything if you follow the thread long through.”
I don’t believe anyone who reads this book will soon forget Lilly Dunne Bere or the events that made up her extraordinary life. This book affected me like no other ever has. If you love literature, and if you love what literature can do, you need to read this book.
5/5
Recommended: Without reservation. This is undoubtedly the most beautifully written book I’ve ever read. However, lest I’ve dwelt on the book’s language too long, let me assure you that the story of Lilly Dunne Bere is a compelling one. Barry does not, in any of his books, sacrifice plot for poetry.
July 31, 2018
Wieder ein Roman von Barry, in dem eine alte Frau ihre Lebenserinnerungen mit uns teilt (wie in Ein verborgenes Leben). Und wieder ein Roman, in dem die Quelle persönlichen Leids aus politischen Konflikten resultiert. Auch hier gibt es Männer, die in 1910er Jahren durch Teilnahme am Ersten Weltkrieg und dem Dienst in der irischen Polizei (beides bedeutete direkt oder indirekt mit den Engländern zusammenzuarbeiten) sich bei den republikanischen Kräften in Irland unbeliebt machten. Einige haben sich im Polizeidienst ganz sicher gegenüber den Revolutionären unmoralisch und grausam verhalten, aber – wie wir bei Barry immer wieder sehen, ahnen oder hoffen – nicht alle.
Als die Republik dann ausgerufen wird, werden ihre Namen auf Todeslisten gesetzt und auch ihre Familien damit unendlichem Leid ausgesetzt. Das führt auch bei Lilly Bere dazu, dass sie ihren Vater (Polizeipräsident) verlassen muss und mit ihrem Verlobten, der auf einer Todesliste steht, in die USA flieht. Hier besteht der große Unterschied zu Ein verborgenes Leben, denn Lilly verbringt den Großteil ihres Lebens nicht in Irland, sondern in den Staaten – in Chicago, Cleveland, den Hamptons.
Doch in beiden Büchern folgen wir den Wirren eines Lebens, das durch irische Konflikte geprägt wurde und in dem Geheimnisse eine große Rolle spielen. Als Lillys Verlobter stirbt (über seinen Tod möchte ich hier nichts verraten, es handelt sich aber um eine beeindruckende Szene) findet sie erneut eine große Liebe – aber wieder handelt es sich um einen Mann mit Geheimnissen.
Und irgendwie landen alle Männer in Lillys Leben bei der Polizei oder dem Militär. Und so ist der Anlass für Lilly, ihre Erinnerungen niederzuschreiben, der Tod ihres Enkels Bill, heimgekehrt aus dem Irak-Krieg, um dann Selbstmord zu begehen. Immer wieder sind es Nationen, die die Leben von Männern rauben und so Frauen und Müttern das Herz brechen.
Dann taucht wiederholt das Motiv des Rassismus in den USA auf und lässt den Leser fragen, welches dieser vom Freiheitsgedanken beseelten Länder hat diese wunderbare Idee von Freiheit und Toleranz häufiger verraten: Die USA oder Irland?
Das ist viel zum Inhalt, was mir eigentlich meist widerstrebt, aber ich mag es halt wie Barry persönliche und historische Geschichte miteinanderverflicht – emotional, spannend, poetisch. Dabei manchmal auch an der Grenze des Kitsches, sehr leicht zu lesen (manchmal zu leicht?). Ich bin mir dann nicht immer so sicher, ob das wirklich große Literatur ist, gerade was die teilweise recht konstruierten Plots angeht. Andererseits finden sich Bilder, die ungemein berühren und alles andere als abgedroschen sind.
Kleiner Wermutstropfen: Ich habe die Erscheinungsdaten nicht recherchiert, aber manches schien mir recht stark an anderen Romanen orientiert, z.B. eine spekatulär-gewaltsame Szene vor einem Bild in einem Museum (Der Distelfink), eine Figur erinnert mich an die Geschichte des Protagonisten in Der menschliche Makel, auch an Transatlantik musste ich manchmal denken; man könnte sicher mehr nennen.
Nichtsdestotrotz lesenswert.
Als die Republik dann ausgerufen wird, werden ihre Namen auf Todeslisten gesetzt und auch ihre Familien damit unendlichem Leid ausgesetzt. Das führt auch bei Lilly Bere dazu, dass sie ihren Vater (Polizeipräsident) verlassen muss und mit ihrem Verlobten, der auf einer Todesliste steht, in die USA flieht. Hier besteht der große Unterschied zu Ein verborgenes Leben, denn Lilly verbringt den Großteil ihres Lebens nicht in Irland, sondern in den Staaten – in Chicago, Cleveland, den Hamptons.
Doch in beiden Büchern folgen wir den Wirren eines Lebens, das durch irische Konflikte geprägt wurde und in dem Geheimnisse eine große Rolle spielen. Als Lillys Verlobter stirbt (über seinen Tod möchte ich hier nichts verraten, es handelt sich aber um eine beeindruckende Szene) findet sie erneut eine große Liebe – aber wieder handelt es sich um einen Mann mit Geheimnissen.
Und irgendwie landen alle Männer in Lillys Leben bei der Polizei oder dem Militär. Und so ist der Anlass für Lilly, ihre Erinnerungen niederzuschreiben, der Tod ihres Enkels Bill, heimgekehrt aus dem Irak-Krieg, um dann Selbstmord zu begehen. Immer wieder sind es Nationen, die die Leben von Männern rauben und so Frauen und Müttern das Herz brechen.
Dann taucht wiederholt das Motiv des Rassismus in den USA auf und lässt den Leser fragen, welches dieser vom Freiheitsgedanken beseelten Länder hat diese wunderbare Idee von Freiheit und Toleranz häufiger verraten: Die USA oder Irland?
Das ist viel zum Inhalt, was mir eigentlich meist widerstrebt, aber ich mag es halt wie Barry persönliche und historische Geschichte miteinanderverflicht – emotional, spannend, poetisch. Dabei manchmal auch an der Grenze des Kitsches, sehr leicht zu lesen (manchmal zu leicht?). Ich bin mir dann nicht immer so sicher, ob das wirklich große Literatur ist, gerade was die teilweise recht konstruierten Plots angeht. Andererseits finden sich Bilder, die ungemein berühren und alles andere als abgedroschen sind.
Kleiner Wermutstropfen: Ich habe die Erscheinungsdaten nicht recherchiert, aber manches schien mir recht stark an anderen Romanen orientiert, z.B. eine spekatulär-gewaltsame Szene vor einem Bild in einem Museum (Der Distelfink), eine Figur erinnert mich an die Geschichte des Protagonisten in Der menschliche Makel, auch an Transatlantik musste ich manchmal denken; man könnte sicher mehr nennen.
Nichtsdestotrotz lesenswert.
August 15, 2025
Dobrze, że jest tak mało wybitnych powieści jak ta, inaczej byłoby jeszcze trudniej wybierać lektury. Cudo.
October 4, 2011
To put it simply: Sebastian Barry writes so beautifully, so poetically, that when I read his books I find myself almost ashamed to admit that I’m also a writer – and a jealous one at that. His prose is so deeply humane and so well-crafted that almost reads like verse; verse that makes you want to cry; no, not from sorrow, but from joy, for having the privilege of reading it. I’m not implying that the subject matters with which the good author is preoccupied are pleasant, quite the opposite, they float in sadness, yet the way he narrates them do not bring much sorrow to the reader’s heart. He seems, in a magical way, to grab the latter by the hand and lead him on to a journey through the wide paths of history, a history that touches everything and everyone in different ways; personal and impersonal at the same time.
This is the story of Lilly Berre, an eighty-nine year old woman, whose grandson Bill just died, and who now just sits and writes down her memoirs, reliving through them a long life full of sorrows and a few touches of joy. The narrator talks in a direct and almost oral way about love and war, about country and home, and about loss, old age and death. And she doesn’t complain about anything, even just a little bit, although she has every right to do so, given the way the fates have treated her.
Her memories, despite her age, are crystal clear, as they are deeply engraved on her tortured soul. She remembers a father whom she loved too much, but whose choices have caused her endless troubles but also saved her life. She remembers her first big love, the man with whom she escaped from Ireland to America, just after the First World War, and whose face reminded her of a Van Gogh painting. She remembers her brother, like a hazy picture of times long gone and who died during that very same war. She remembers everything, and everything she writes, like a living testament, even though she says she hates writing. She needs to tell everything, to get it out of her breast, because: “We are not immune to memory.”
Even though “the past is a crying child”, as she writes somewhere in this seventeen day long monologue, she never cries: “I am cold because I cannot find my heart,” she’s quick to point out. However, she’s not really cold, she’s just hurt, as she’s lived an eventful life, but nevertheless poor where results were concerned. She worked a lot, she fought hard for a better tomorrow, she spent years and years in fear and whatever she won she lost, whomever she loved she buried. And yet not a single word of complain ever escapes her lips. Lilly is a woman full of patience, one of those unique and rarely met souls that can only feel compassion for the others, and who know how to forgive. One could say that her way of thinking and living sounds kind of fatalistic, and one would be wrong. Her memories are sad, but not bitter, and her memories are her life. Writing them down is what keeps her alive; her resilience is her power.
“Tears have a better character cried alone,” she thinks, and that’s why she mourns her loss on her own and in the quiet. And her tears turn into pearls of wisdom and humanity. As Joe, one of the main characters says, we “live in a big box of fear.” Lilly takes this fear and turns it into power; she takes that power and turns it into a story – the story we are now holding in our hands.
Absolutely brilliant.
This is the story of Lilly Berre, an eighty-nine year old woman, whose grandson Bill just died, and who now just sits and writes down her memoirs, reliving through them a long life full of sorrows and a few touches of joy. The narrator talks in a direct and almost oral way about love and war, about country and home, and about loss, old age and death. And she doesn’t complain about anything, even just a little bit, although she has every right to do so, given the way the fates have treated her.
Her memories, despite her age, are crystal clear, as they are deeply engraved on her tortured soul. She remembers a father whom she loved too much, but whose choices have caused her endless troubles but also saved her life. She remembers her first big love, the man with whom she escaped from Ireland to America, just after the First World War, and whose face reminded her of a Van Gogh painting. She remembers her brother, like a hazy picture of times long gone and who died during that very same war. She remembers everything, and everything she writes, like a living testament, even though she says she hates writing. She needs to tell everything, to get it out of her breast, because: “We are not immune to memory.”
Even though “the past is a crying child”, as she writes somewhere in this seventeen day long monologue, she never cries: “I am cold because I cannot find my heart,” she’s quick to point out. However, she’s not really cold, she’s just hurt, as she’s lived an eventful life, but nevertheless poor where results were concerned. She worked a lot, she fought hard for a better tomorrow, she spent years and years in fear and whatever she won she lost, whomever she loved she buried. And yet not a single word of complain ever escapes her lips. Lilly is a woman full of patience, one of those unique and rarely met souls that can only feel compassion for the others, and who know how to forgive. One could say that her way of thinking and living sounds kind of fatalistic, and one would be wrong. Her memories are sad, but not bitter, and her memories are her life. Writing them down is what keeps her alive; her resilience is her power.
“Tears have a better character cried alone,” she thinks, and that’s why she mourns her loss on her own and in the quiet. And her tears turn into pearls of wisdom and humanity. As Joe, one of the main characters says, we “live in a big box of fear.” Lilly takes this fear and turns it into power; she takes that power and turns it into a story – the story we are now holding in our hands.
Absolutely brilliant.
September 11, 2011
I would have finished this book sooner, had I not loved it so much. As I told my friend, I spun the last few pages out like a stick of candy floss, I just could not bear for it to end. But there's no escaping the inevitable, and end it did. I don't think any review of this book from me could do it justice, I just feel I'm not up to the task. And although I loved, loved, LOVED it, I don't know if I understood the ending properly, so leaving that alone altogether. So for what it's worth, then, these are my thoughts and feelings about On Canaan's Side.....(for a really good review, go to Guardian.co.UK/culture/books).
I know one could, or maybe should, be able to say this about any book, but with Barry, it really is all about the language - for me, anyway. Although it's a bit of a cliche to say this, his language just transports me. I found the story very interesting anyway, perhaps in part because it is closely related to another of Barry's books - A Long, Long Way - which also got 5 stars from me. But the way he writes is just in a realm all its own. Beautiful, lyrical, atmospheric, evocative, charged with emotion at times - and nobody, but nobody, can do imagery and symbolism as well as he can. In essence, this book explores what has been referred to elsewhere as a rich seam of Irish history for Barry - the lasting repercussions which reverberated through many Irish families for years, following the Irish War of Independence, the First World War, and the Irish Civil War.
Our main character, Lilly Bere, is a casualty of these repercussions, and we hear her life story in retrospect, through her own words, in the pages of this book. I read a web review of On Canaan's Side, where the reviewer said she had wept four times while reading it. Me too. Maybe even a couple more. But as you're reading it, you come to realise you're not just crying for the character of Lilly, you're crying for yourself. Because this book resonates with the twin themes of memory and loss. So, as you're reading, you find yourself ruminating, often subconsciously, on the effect of those twin themes on your own life. And, for me, apart from the beautiful writing, that's where the real power of Barry's work lies - in reflecting the reader back to themselves through his characters. I often find myself reading passages over again, because the first time I read them, they were so good, the writing so magnificent, I literally gobbled them up like a hungry man at a sumptuous feast. Sometimes because the writing was just that beautiful, sometimes because the passage was so deeply sad, and sometimes because something in there touched my very heart, I find I have to go back, read more slowly, savour. I hope I haven't bigged up the language in this book at the expense of the plot, because of course, no story - no book, no matter how well written. I think this book will be staying in my mind and my heart for a long time though, andis oneof the few books I know I will enjoy just as much when I return for a reread, someday. Be kind to yourself. Read it.
I know one could, or maybe should, be able to say this about any book, but with Barry, it really is all about the language - for me, anyway. Although it's a bit of a cliche to say this, his language just transports me. I found the story very interesting anyway, perhaps in part because it is closely related to another of Barry's books - A Long, Long Way - which also got 5 stars from me. But the way he writes is just in a realm all its own. Beautiful, lyrical, atmospheric, evocative, charged with emotion at times - and nobody, but nobody, can do imagery and symbolism as well as he can. In essence, this book explores what has been referred to elsewhere as a rich seam of Irish history for Barry - the lasting repercussions which reverberated through many Irish families for years, following the Irish War of Independence, the First World War, and the Irish Civil War.
Our main character, Lilly Bere, is a casualty of these repercussions, and we hear her life story in retrospect, through her own words, in the pages of this book. I read a web review of On Canaan's Side, where the reviewer said she had wept four times while reading it. Me too. Maybe even a couple more. But as you're reading it, you come to realise you're not just crying for the character of Lilly, you're crying for yourself. Because this book resonates with the twin themes of memory and loss. So, as you're reading, you find yourself ruminating, often subconsciously, on the effect of those twin themes on your own life. And, for me, apart from the beautiful writing, that's where the real power of Barry's work lies - in reflecting the reader back to themselves through his characters. I often find myself reading passages over again, because the first time I read them, they were so good, the writing so magnificent, I literally gobbled them up like a hungry man at a sumptuous feast. Sometimes because the writing was just that beautiful, sometimes because the passage was so deeply sad, and sometimes because something in there touched my very heart, I find I have to go back, read more slowly, savour. I hope I haven't bigged up the language in this book at the expense of the plot, because of course, no story - no book, no matter how well written. I think this book will be staying in my mind and my heart for a long time though, andis oneof the few books I know I will enjoy just as much when I return for a reread, someday. Be kind to yourself. Read it.
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