Scattered Love

by Maylis Besserie, Clíona Ní Ríordáin (Translator)

She is Maud Gonne, the muse of writer William Butler Yeats. Yeats here returns as a ghost, after having been buried in southern France in January 1939 at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. Ten years later his remains are repatriated to Ireland. He emerges from his grave to recount his thwarted love with Maud, a story blending with the movement for Irish independence in which they each played an integral part.
Yeats' ghost has suddenly appeared as diplomatic documents have come to light, casting doubt on the contents of the coffin brought back to Sligo for a state funeral. Where did the poet's body go? Does he still hover 'somewhere above the clouds'? What remains of our loves and our deaths, if not their poetry?
Maylis Besserie's exciting new work follows on from Yell, Sam, If You Still Can (Le tiers temps), translated by Clíona Ní Ríordáin. In Besserie's second novel, she turns her attention from Samuel Beckett to another Irish writer, W. B. Yeats. The connection between Ireland and France is forged once again in the smithy of art, culture and the days at the end of life.

179 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 15, 2023

Reviews

[John Dunne · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have any interest in W. B. Yeats, Maude Gonne and her daughter Iseult, you might like this. If you can handle loads of Celtic Twilight mysticism, you might love it. If you’re intrigued by what is actually buried in the poet’s grave, you’ll definitely love it. Apart from the intriguing activities of ’the Scattered’, a French group with a personal interest in what lies in Drumcliffe churchyard, I enjoyed it in an on/off sort of way but I’m surprised at how memorable it’s proved to be. Caveat: the grisly graveyard details are not for the squeamish

[Richard Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel on W B Yeats is part of an Irish trilogy by this French writer, who has also written novels about Samuel Beckett and Francis Bacon. She has clever ways of approaching these well-documented lives.

My blog: richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/07/...