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Онемяла тишина
Чудовище, което яде спомени и живее в килера под стълбището, се освобождава от оковите си; сомалийско момиче в училището й в Донегал се оказва по-силно, отколкото изглежда; под жасминовия храст в Андалусия жена очаква откраднатия й преди 33 години син; на края на града двама братя несъзнателно се замесват в игра, която завършва със смърт.
Всеобхватността и разнообразието на тези разкази са безгранични, като се простират между реалното и въображаемото.
„Онемяла тишина” представя свят от неочаквани ъгли, където обикновеното се превръща в необикновено, а необикновеното се възвисява до сюблимно. Това са разкази, изтъкани от състрадание и чувство за хумор, и възвестяват появата на свеж нов глас в съвременната ирландска литература.
В този изумително новаторски и смел сборник Роушин О’Донъл изследва болките и победите на човешката душа, а тихите, смълчани моменти са като милувка.
Всеобхватността и разнообразието на тези разкази са безгранични, като се простират между реалното и въображаемото.
„Онемяла тишина” представя свят от неочаквани ъгли, където обикновеното се превръща в необикновено, а необикновеното се възвисява до сюблимно. Това са разкази, изтъкани от състрадание и чувство за хумор, и възвестяват появата на свеж нов глас в съвременната ирландска литература.
В този изумително новаторски и смел сборник Роушин О’Донъл изследва болките и победите на човешката душа, а тихите, смълчани моменти са като милувка.
188 pages, Paperback
First published May 16, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 3, 2016
This is a solid short story collection and as good as any of the recent crop of short story collections coming out of Ireland over the last few years, which is saying a lot. The language in Wild Quiet is rich and layered, perhaps lacking the linguistic acrobatics of some of its contemporaries, and there's no need to go running for the dictionary, which is refreshing. While the writing won't necessarily stretch the reader there's a lot to be said for the lack of pretentiousness this writer exhibits. O'Donnell has her feet on the ground, and there are many many very nicely turned phrases. Think more rich tilled soil than ethereal airy heights. I liked this collection a lot and look forward to reading more from Roisin O'Donnell in the future.
May 28, 2016
Wild Quiet
Roisin O'Donnell (New Island Books 2016, Trade Paperback) 184 pages, cover price n/a
Metaphorically at least, art at its best exists as the Customs House managing the flow of two great nations that don't entirely get along yet have to do business with each other for the sake of commerce. Those two nations are talent and craft. In simplest terms, talent is the ability to see something as a metaphor of something else; shapes in clouds for instance, or those very odd people who are always seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast. Craft then is the discipline to take these little flights of imagination and make them line up together like good little schoolchildren being called in from the yard at the end of recess. It is up to the artist – and here we will narrow down the frame to writers – who must sit in that Customs House and manage the trade between the two.
There is not a great writer on Earth who doesn't find this task exhausting. This will sound like Freud 101 to which I say, you're darn right it is. The artistic happy Id just wants to keep on having happy artistic Id thoughts, which are incredibly annoying to the Superego crafter who just wants the Id to shut the hell up and stop trying to change the goddam story all the time! And so there sits the Ego, behind the desk in that Customs House. That was Geoffrey Chaucer's job you know – ran the customs for the port of London back in the thirteenth century. Somehow he also found the time to write the Canterbury Tales.
It was reading Roisin O'Donnell's first collection of short stories, Wild Quiet that got me to thinking about all this. I happily announced Roisin as the 2015 winner of San Diego Book Review's Dorothy Parker Award on the basis of just two short stories: Infinite Landscapes, and How to Learn Irish in Seventeen Steps. Both of those I am delighted to say are in Wild Quiet and the latter in particular is one of five short stories I consider to be perfectly written. (Oh, now you'll want to know the others. Fine then – Mrs Parker's Big Blonde, Hemingway's The Killers, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Chekhov's The Lottery Ticket. Now can we get on with it? Thank you.)
What so vastly impressed me about Roisin's work then and this new collection just reinforces my opinion is her so very rare ability to balance a truly fantastic talent for observation and interpretation with the discipline to craft rock solid, leak-proof structures. It's all rather like one of those three-tiered cake stands that are presented to your table at a high tea; every layer is filled with tastefully arranged scrumptiousness, but it's not over-filled either. You get to appreciate both the savory and the sweet because there's just enough of both.
That was why I was impatiently awaiting the publication of Wild Quiet. I wanted to see how this young Irish writer's skills were expanding. So what I found was ... the reason why I started talking about Chaucer and Customs Houses.
I ask you, Why do we still bother with reading and studying the works of Chaucer? Why put up with the torture of decoding Middle English? It certainly is not because the old boy was the first great storyteller in our language; all kinds of people are first at things but that doesn't mean that any of them were particularly good at it. Whoever first held the course record at St Andrews certainly doesn't hold it now, and I don't think rugby's Webb Ellis would last long faced with a scrum of New Zealand All-Blacks.
No, Chaucer had and still has two things going for him. One, he was able to write the Canterbury Tales in the distinct individual voices of all those pilgrims. You're not going to mistake the Knight for the Summoner for the Pardoner and you sure as hell won't mistake any of them for the Wife of Bath. (I actually had a Professor who had an unabashed literary crush on the Wife of Bath, but that's a lurid story for another day.) Secondly, it may sound obvious, but Chaucer understood travel and the accommodations one is forced to make in getting along peacefully with a group of strangers. How does one fit in?
Now, I'm not going to say Roisin O'Donnell is Geoffrey Chaucer – that would be doing to her what drunken sportswriters do to sixteen year old high school basketball players when they announce them as 'the new Michael Jordan (hic)!' However, she and Chaucer do share the same strengths. It amazes me – literally, truly, with no exaggeration amazes me – how this young Irish writer can mind meld and speak with the voice of (to name a few): a thirteen year old black immigrant boy with a learning disability, a heartbroken and suicidal Japanese woman, a young girl who is a refugee from Somalia and is afraid to speak of her past, or a thirty year old Irishman racing back to Indonesia because his childhood friend needs him. Every one of these voices, as most of the twelve stories are written in first person, is so linguistically distinct it is like reading stories by twelve different talented writers. Or one Chaucer. Or one O'Donnell.
Now I know what you're going to think – that no one can be as good as I'm saying Roisin O'Donnell is. And fine, yes, there are a couple of errors. There is one in Infinite Landscapes which was either not there the first time I read it or I missed it. A character who discovers she is pregnant calls her mother back in Africa via Skype at a time well before Skype had been thought of. Oopsy daisy. I suggest in the future editions that be changed to a garden variety long distance call and then Bob's your uncle. As well, I'm not totally sure that the story Titanium Heart works as a fantasy tribute to O'Donnell's birthplace of Sheffield. The steel city is quite literally made of steel, as are the internal organs of some of the inhabitants. The steel quite literally begins t melt but the city is revived by the planting of millions of trees and, well, you know I like a good allegory as much as the next man but I think the message rather forced the execution of the story rather than supporting it. Still, Titanium Heart has its entertaining virtues and you may well say it's your favourite. Such is life, such is taste.
Ultimately though, when you read Wild Quiet (and if I have anything to say on the matter you bloody well will read it) you will place a few hours of your life in the splendid company of a master storyteller. You will find as I did that each of the twelve narrative voices are equal parts sharp, occasionally whimsical, occasionally sentimental, and always empathetic to the surrounding story. The scenes of Africa or Indonesia are as eye-catching and true as those written by a Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham, and when O'Donnell sets up the situation in On Cosmology of a modern woman who may be pregnant by a lunkhead who surreptitiously pulled off the condom; well I think if Dorothy Parker herself was alive today she'd be applauding. Here's a sample from On Cosmology. Our narrator is speaking to her three-week old foetus:
Our second date should never have happened. After the love bite I had sworn I was never going to see your father again. But I longed for the closeness of him. So, like an eejit, I waited at the Spire one November night, shivering in a black miniskirt, ankle boots and purple tights. And as I stood in the roaring neon rush of O'Connell Street, I rehearsed the reasons why I shouldn't sleep with David. There were plenty of reasons. He was clearly a player, and would finish with me as soon as we'd had sex. At the age of thirty I had turned a corner and was now making Positive Life Decisions. Plus, he was the type of guy who was used to getting everything he wanted, and I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction. But my breasts were traitors, shouting to be caressed. My skin was singing to be touched. The evening had a thunderstorm inevitability about it. Amd when we ended up naked in bed, I don't think either of us was surprised.
Lastly, there is a very nice note in Wild Quiet's Acknowledgements thanking me for being Roisin O'Donnell's first fan. Well, I'm quite sure there were teachers, editors and undoubtedly parents who came before me chronologically but it was a lovely compliment. Yes indeed I am a fan and I urge you to be a fan too. Believe me, it is a fan club that is going to grow very large over the coming years.
Be seeing you.
Roisin O'Donnell (New Island Books 2016, Trade Paperback) 184 pages, cover price n/a
Metaphorically at least, art at its best exists as the Customs House managing the flow of two great nations that don't entirely get along yet have to do business with each other for the sake of commerce. Those two nations are talent and craft. In simplest terms, talent is the ability to see something as a metaphor of something else; shapes in clouds for instance, or those very odd people who are always seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast. Craft then is the discipline to take these little flights of imagination and make them line up together like good little schoolchildren being called in from the yard at the end of recess. It is up to the artist – and here we will narrow down the frame to writers – who must sit in that Customs House and manage the trade between the two.
There is not a great writer on Earth who doesn't find this task exhausting. This will sound like Freud 101 to which I say, you're darn right it is. The artistic happy Id just wants to keep on having happy artistic Id thoughts, which are incredibly annoying to the Superego crafter who just wants the Id to shut the hell up and stop trying to change the goddam story all the time! And so there sits the Ego, behind the desk in that Customs House. That was Geoffrey Chaucer's job you know – ran the customs for the port of London back in the thirteenth century. Somehow he also found the time to write the Canterbury Tales.
It was reading Roisin O'Donnell's first collection of short stories, Wild Quiet that got me to thinking about all this. I happily announced Roisin as the 2015 winner of San Diego Book Review's Dorothy Parker Award on the basis of just two short stories: Infinite Landscapes, and How to Learn Irish in Seventeen Steps. Both of those I am delighted to say are in Wild Quiet and the latter in particular is one of five short stories I consider to be perfectly written. (Oh, now you'll want to know the others. Fine then – Mrs Parker's Big Blonde, Hemingway's The Killers, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Chekhov's The Lottery Ticket. Now can we get on with it? Thank you.)
What so vastly impressed me about Roisin's work then and this new collection just reinforces my opinion is her so very rare ability to balance a truly fantastic talent for observation and interpretation with the discipline to craft rock solid, leak-proof structures. It's all rather like one of those three-tiered cake stands that are presented to your table at a high tea; every layer is filled with tastefully arranged scrumptiousness, but it's not over-filled either. You get to appreciate both the savory and the sweet because there's just enough of both.
That was why I was impatiently awaiting the publication of Wild Quiet. I wanted to see how this young Irish writer's skills were expanding. So what I found was ... the reason why I started talking about Chaucer and Customs Houses.
I ask you, Why do we still bother with reading and studying the works of Chaucer? Why put up with the torture of decoding Middle English? It certainly is not because the old boy was the first great storyteller in our language; all kinds of people are first at things but that doesn't mean that any of them were particularly good at it. Whoever first held the course record at St Andrews certainly doesn't hold it now, and I don't think rugby's Webb Ellis would last long faced with a scrum of New Zealand All-Blacks.
No, Chaucer had and still has two things going for him. One, he was able to write the Canterbury Tales in the distinct individual voices of all those pilgrims. You're not going to mistake the Knight for the Summoner for the Pardoner and you sure as hell won't mistake any of them for the Wife of Bath. (I actually had a Professor who had an unabashed literary crush on the Wife of Bath, but that's a lurid story for another day.) Secondly, it may sound obvious, but Chaucer understood travel and the accommodations one is forced to make in getting along peacefully with a group of strangers. How does one fit in?
Now, I'm not going to say Roisin O'Donnell is Geoffrey Chaucer – that would be doing to her what drunken sportswriters do to sixteen year old high school basketball players when they announce them as 'the new Michael Jordan (hic)!' However, she and Chaucer do share the same strengths. It amazes me – literally, truly, with no exaggeration amazes me – how this young Irish writer can mind meld and speak with the voice of (to name a few): a thirteen year old black immigrant boy with a learning disability, a heartbroken and suicidal Japanese woman, a young girl who is a refugee from Somalia and is afraid to speak of her past, or a thirty year old Irishman racing back to Indonesia because his childhood friend needs him. Every one of these voices, as most of the twelve stories are written in first person, is so linguistically distinct it is like reading stories by twelve different talented writers. Or one Chaucer. Or one O'Donnell.
Now I know what you're going to think – that no one can be as good as I'm saying Roisin O'Donnell is. And fine, yes, there are a couple of errors. There is one in Infinite Landscapes which was either not there the first time I read it or I missed it. A character who discovers she is pregnant calls her mother back in Africa via Skype at a time well before Skype had been thought of. Oopsy daisy. I suggest in the future editions that be changed to a garden variety long distance call and then Bob's your uncle. As well, I'm not totally sure that the story Titanium Heart works as a fantasy tribute to O'Donnell's birthplace of Sheffield. The steel city is quite literally made of steel, as are the internal organs of some of the inhabitants. The steel quite literally begins t melt but the city is revived by the planting of millions of trees and, well, you know I like a good allegory as much as the next man but I think the message rather forced the execution of the story rather than supporting it. Still, Titanium Heart has its entertaining virtues and you may well say it's your favourite. Such is life, such is taste.
Ultimately though, when you read Wild Quiet (and if I have anything to say on the matter you bloody well will read it) you will place a few hours of your life in the splendid company of a master storyteller. You will find as I did that each of the twelve narrative voices are equal parts sharp, occasionally whimsical, occasionally sentimental, and always empathetic to the surrounding story. The scenes of Africa or Indonesia are as eye-catching and true as those written by a Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham, and when O'Donnell sets up the situation in On Cosmology of a modern woman who may be pregnant by a lunkhead who surreptitiously pulled off the condom; well I think if Dorothy Parker herself was alive today she'd be applauding. Here's a sample from On Cosmology. Our narrator is speaking to her three-week old foetus:
Our second date should never have happened. After the love bite I had sworn I was never going to see your father again. But I longed for the closeness of him. So, like an eejit, I waited at the Spire one November night, shivering in a black miniskirt, ankle boots and purple tights. And as I stood in the roaring neon rush of O'Connell Street, I rehearsed the reasons why I shouldn't sleep with David. There were plenty of reasons. He was clearly a player, and would finish with me as soon as we'd had sex. At the age of thirty I had turned a corner and was now making Positive Life Decisions. Plus, he was the type of guy who was used to getting everything he wanted, and I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction. But my breasts were traitors, shouting to be caressed. My skin was singing to be touched. The evening had a thunderstorm inevitability about it. Amd when we ended up naked in bed, I don't think either of us was surprised.
Lastly, there is a very nice note in Wild Quiet's Acknowledgements thanking me for being Roisin O'Donnell's first fan. Well, I'm quite sure there were teachers, editors and undoubtedly parents who came before me chronologically but it was a lovely compliment. Yes indeed I am a fan and I urge you to be a fan too. Believe me, it is a fan club that is going to grow very large over the coming years.
Be seeing you.
Read
October 15, 2018"Въпреки това, през онова лято на 1998 г., започнах да забелязвам неща за Дери, на които по-рано не бях обръщала внимание. Сивата дъга на Новия мост се извисяваше над река Фойл. Ивици от червено-бяло-сива боя опасваха бордюрите на Уотърсайд до степен, че приличаха на удушаване. Ленти в зелено-бяло-оранжево ограждаха тротоарите на Роузмаунт. Черепът на паравоенен бе изрисуван на фронтон в близост до къщата на дядо с думите "Няма да се предадем", изписани на флайър над него. Трикольор, завързан за картечница, украсяваше друг фронтон в Роузмаунт, а думите "Влизате на територията на свободен Дери" охраняваха Богсайд. Пропускателни пунктове бяха попълнени с британски войници, които държаха на гръд дълги черни пушки, а погледът им зорко следеше района точно над главите ни".
Роушин О'Донъл, сборник "Онемяла тишина, из разказа "Спомените на Ебенезер", прев. Мирела Христова
От месеци ровя в ирландската история.
Най-вече в тази на Северна Ирландия.
Започнах по странен начин, който вече съм споменавала, а след това продължих с по- "традиционни" "методи". Иначе казано, започнах с музиката, минах през историята и "тръгнах" към съвременната литература.
Затова не се замислих изобщо, когато абсолютгно случайно се натъкнах на сборника с разкази на Роушин О'Донъл "Онемяла тишина". Разпознах един от разказите, който вече бях чела в друга книга, но иначе нямах почти никаква представа какво ме очаква.
И всъщност още не съм съвсем сигурна, защото до този момент съм прочела само два разказа и половина. Но прочетеното дотук...
Трябваше да знам, трябваше още когато видях къде се развива действието в цитирания разказ, да се сетя, че ще има много мъка, много тежест в него. Само че този разказ е един от споменатите в анотацията на книгата - и е спомената онази част от него, която залага на мистичното и свръхестественото. Без никакъв намек за другото.
И друго - ако бях прочела цитираните по-горе редове преди година, наистина щях да ги приема просто като част от историята и от описанието на един град. Но сега, когато знам тази история, когато съм виждала поне на снимка почти всичко изброено, ми беше почти страшно да чета. И всичко ми се струваше познато, все едно наистина съм била там, и съм видяла истинските места и неща, а не само снимките.
Вероятно ще пиша по-подробно за цялата книга, когато я дочета. Но дори само заради тази история мога да твърдя, че си заслужаваше.
ПП. Снимките по-долу не са правени от мен, за съжаление. Надявам се някой ден да мога да направя и свои.
Приключих я. И понеже в написаното вчера се съсредоточих повече върху една конкретна част само от един разказ, нека все пак кажа още нещо.
Първо - нека не ви подвежда сравнително малкият обем на книгата /едва 187 страници./ В тези 12 разказа има учудващ многообразие от теми и дори от жанрове. Реализъм, малко политика, дори малко фантастика. И нищо, което ме впечатли още в самото начало - макар действието във всеки от тях да се развива в Ирландия, винаги поне един от героите не е ирландец. Винаги има чужденец, дошъл в Ирландия, като във всеки разказ причините са различни - любовни, политически, свързани с работа. Истински "намек" за политика има единствено в "Спомените на Ебенезер", но винаги има някакъв конфликт - емоционален, расов, или някакъв личен вътрешен сблъсък на самия герой.
И още едно общо нещо има между тези истории - независимо от темата, навсякъде има елемент на мистика, на загадка, дори на вълшебство. Онова вълшебство, което преди години ме накара да поискам да посетя Ирландия.
И което ще ме накара да се върна пак там.
Надявам се.
Роушин О'Донъл, сборник "Онемяла тишина, из разказа "Спомените на Ебенезер", прев. Мирела Христова
От месеци ровя в ирландската история.
Най-вече в тази на Северна Ирландия.
Започнах по странен начин, който вече съм споменавала, а след това продължих с по- "традиционни" "методи". Иначе казано, започнах с музиката, минах през историята и "тръгнах" към съвременната литература.
Затова не се замислих изобщо, когато абсолютгно случайно се натъкнах на сборника с разкази на Роушин О'Донъл "Онемяла тишина". Разпознах един от разказите, който вече бях чела в друга книга, но иначе нямах почти никаква представа какво ме очаква.
И всъщност още не съм съвсем сигурна, защото до този момент съм прочела само два разказа и половина. Но прочетеното дотук...
Трябваше да знам, трябваше още когато видях къде се развива действието в цитирания разказ, да се сетя, че ще има много мъка, много тежест в него. Само че този разказ е един от споменатите в анотацията на книгата - и е спомената онази част от него, която залага на мистичното и свръхестественото. Без никакъв намек за другото.
И друго - ако бях прочела цитираните по-горе редове преди година, наистина щях да ги приема просто като част от историята и от описанието на един град. Но сега, когато знам тази история, когато съм виждала поне на снимка почти всичко изброено, ми беше почти страшно да чета. И всичко ми се струваше познато, все едно наистина съм била там, и съм видяла истинските места и неща, а не само снимките.
Вероятно ще пиша по-подробно за цялата книга, когато я дочета. Но дори само заради тази история мога да твърдя, че си заслужаваше.
ПП. Снимките по-долу не са правени от мен, за съжаление. Надявам се някой ден да мога да направя и свои.
Приключих я. И понеже в написаното вчера се съсредоточих повече върху една конкретна част само от един разказ, нека все пак кажа още нещо.
Първо - нека не ви подвежда сравнително малкият обем на книгата /едва 187 страници./ В тези 12 разказа има учудващ многообразие от теми и дори от жанрове. Реализъм, малко политика, дори малко фантастика. И нищо, което ме впечатли още в самото начало - макар действието във всеки от тях да се развива в Ирландия, винаги поне един от героите не е ирландец. Винаги има чужденец, дошъл в Ирландия, като във всеки разказ причините са различни - любовни, политически, свързани с работа. Истински "намек" за политика има единствено в "Спомените на Ебенезер", но винаги има някакъв конфликт - емоционален, расов, или някакъв личен вътрешен сблъсък на самия герой.
И още едно общо нещо има между тези истории - независимо от темата, навсякъде има елемент на мистика, на загадка, дори на вълшебство. Онова вълшебство, което преди години ме накара да поискам да посетя Ирландия.
И което ще ме накара да се върна пак там.
Надявам се.
January 29, 2025
These stories are all well written and the protagonists in each one felt like distinct characters, which not all short stories writers pull off I feel like. The cast of characters was very diverse and covered a lot of different backgrounds. The first few stories incorporated some magical realism (or what the characters in the story thought was magical realism, I should say) which I hadn’t really expected from the blurb; if I had to find a common theme between the stories I’d say it’s parent-child relationships and then some romantic relationships.
Calling them sappy would be a bit too mean, but maybe melodramatic? I know, short stories writers can’t win with me because if stories don’t pack enough of a punch I don’t like them either, but here I felt like at times O’Donnell created an unearned sense of melodrama that hadn’t been borne out by the actual content of the story. Also some overuse of second person narration.
It was enjoyable enough to read though and I’d check it out if you like reading emotional contemporary short stories.
Calling them sappy would be a bit too mean, but maybe melodramatic? I know, short stories writers can’t win with me because if stories don’t pack enough of a punch I don’t like them either, but here I felt like at times O’Donnell created an unearned sense of melodrama that hadn’t been borne out by the actual content of the story. Also some overuse of second person narration.
It was enjoyable enough to read though and I’d check it out if you like reading emotional contemporary short stories.
September 9, 2018
Not a fan of this book. The prose was wonderful, and I loved the international nature of the stories, and of course I was excited to check out a contemporary Irish writer. But there was just something about the narratives that made them either (a) difficult to follow or (b) fall flat.
Having said that, my favorite story, When Time Stretches, was masterful, as perfect in structure and beautiful in rhythm as any of my favorite short stories. With collections, you always get a mixed bag! So, if you do come across this book, give it a fair shake by at least reading this one story first.
Having said that, my favorite story, When Time Stretches, was masterful, as perfect in structure and beautiful in rhythm as any of my favorite short stories. With collections, you always get a mixed bag! So, if you do come across this book, give it a fair shake by at least reading this one story first.
June 16, 2019
I didn’t remember requesting this book from my library, so when it showed up on my “shelf” I had no idea what it would be about. It’s a collection of short stories that although are mostly set in Ireland, are very different stories about very different people. Some of them were written in a very poetic way and others more straightforward. I think in these stories, there is something for any taste. It was a great collection and really very different from any of my usual genres. I think the were all very well written and very interesting.
August 2, 2020
A very gifted writer, one of the best written books I’ve read. Plot, characters etc not disappointing either, but the most remarkable aspect is certainly O’Donnells writing style.
November 27, 2021
'Wild Quiet' by Roisin O'Donnell is a collection of short stories, each and every one superb in its own unique way.
March 27, 2025
3.5 stars
September 18, 2016
3.5 rounding up to 4. An enjoyable collection, worth checking out. Review to follow.
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