The Star Factory

by Ciaran Carson

The author describes his childhood growing up in Belfast, and looks at how the city has changed from its more prosperous and peaceful past

Genres: Ireland, Irish Literature, Memoir

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Ciaran Gerard Carson was born in 1948 in Belfast and educated at The Queen’s University, Belfast. He knows intimately not only the urban Belfast in which he was raised as a native Irish speaker, but also the traditions of rural Ireland. A traditional musician and a scholar of the Irish oral traditional, Carson was long the Traditional Arts Officer of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and is a flutist, tinwhistler, and singer. He is Chair of Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre for poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is married to fiddle player Deirdre Shannon, and has three children.

He is author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, as well as translations of the Táin and of Dante’s Inferno, and novels, non-fiction, and a guide to traditional Irish music. Carson won an Eric Gregory Award in 1978.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It is instructive to watch a master storyteller in action as he manipulates his various latitudes of anecdote and parable, and suits them to contemporary circumstances, bending the previous rules of the story a little to make it fit whatever conversation in whatever venue; and the room becomes a geodesic dome* in which he moves through longitudes of time, incapable of being here and now without remembering the previous narrative zones he’s passed through.”

A good summary of Carson's own storytelling in this lovely memoir. The "master" in this case is Carson's father; the whole book is a paean to his father, who inspired his son's love of story and language. Every so often, Carson describes his own process of composing:

"I open the flap again in my mind, and compose myself like an express postal-worker on an antiquated night mail-train, assigning letters to their destinations like an automatic pilot, swaying with practiced ease against the lurch of the carriage, as a long white rope of smoke unfurls from the snort of the locomotive chattering through the dark, past sleeping villages and back-yard pigeon lofts in conurbations, under the aqueducts and viaducts and into tunnels." Carson is a talented musician as well as an acclaimed poet (he often performs at his readings), and his lyricism sings in all genres. Who else could insert a Latinate word like "conurbations" in the midst of such a vivid description and not only avoid disrupting the rhythm but enhance it?

But all is not lush word-play. He does set-scene narrative superbly, as well, as in this description of a wake:

“When the coffin came, sometimes the stairs would be so narrow that the undertakers had to take the window out. Otherwise the coffin might get stuck in an indecorous angle. So they lifted the empty coffin in through the glassless embrasure, and lowered it back on to the street. When the time came for the funeral procession to congregate, an Angel of Death would arrive to supervise the proceedings, and the same Angel who was first on your doorstep with news of the decease. Typically, these were little shabby-dapper gregarious men who’d started off as bookies’ runners, and now survived on a mysterious series of moonlighting enterprises. They smelled of billiard chalk. They had the gift of the gab and sometimes acted as assistant managers of parish Gaelic football teams. They were partial to the odd bottle, and were often propped at bar counters in between jobs. Some were married, and some were not, but every family seemed to extend to one.”

Never underestimate the power of a simple sensory detail: "They smelled of billiard chalk."
And that's the finest use of "indecorous" I can recall.

Though the book is seemingly organized by spontaneous association, especially within chapters, it is also has an accessible structure, opening and closing with descriptions of the father. But it is a loose thematic structure, not a chronological one, and Carson's tour of Belfast includes many leisurely detours, often detailed with rich, Whitman-style lists of detail. In an interview, Carson once said, "Heft. They [words] have heft. And they've got a life of their own. And there are times - I don't see myself as an exploiter of language; the language exploits me. There's a whole language out there, and one's role as a writer is to stumble around in it."

If you prefer an efficient and linear narrative, then this one would probably test your patience. But if you love playful, evocative language, I can't recommend it strongly enough. Literary stumbling has never been so much fun. It rewards multiple readings. I've reread and annotated some passages so much that I'm going to need a backup copy eventually.

[Khrustalyov · Rating 5 out of 5]

At once a sort-of memoir, a history of Belfast, and a love letter to the author's father. The Star Factory, like all of Carson's 'novels', is unclassifiable and revels in its writhing structures and poetic formulations. It straddles the obsessive and quotidian nature of the later Fishing for Amber and the playful and propulsive energy of the earlier Last Night's Fun. It is always pushing further into some nook or cranny of Belfast, only to unfurl on a deeply felt memory of a childhood spent in that divided and mysterious city. It is not the sentimental and teary-eyed memoir of Kenneth Brannagh or indeed many other writers, but rather an emotional and psychological geography of a great city, wrapped around a story about the love for one's father.

I was born in Belfast, grew up near enough the city, and later spent some years living in it. I knew and liked the city a great deal. But it wasn't until I read this elliptical, kaleidoscopic, and utterly singular novel that Belfast really came to life for me in all of its facets and charms.

[Allan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read two of Carson's novels, I was prepared for a 'wordy' delivery in this book, but unfortunately found the meandering style hard work.

The book has a number of loosely connected chapters, many beginning with subject matter that interested me, particularly when concerned with Carson's reminiscence about Belfast, but very quickly, the subjects completely changed, frequently incorporating topics like religion, smoking, dreams, and the collecting of stamps, models and antiques.

Very self indulgent, which Carson has every right to be, but definitely not a book that I found much of worth in, aside from references to books of which I hadn't heard.

One critic on the blurb compared the 'twists and weaves' being reminiscent of 'the most piquant of jazz solos'. Shame I've never been a fan of jazz...

[Lanea · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Star Factory is perhaps the most poetic of autobiographies to come out of Ireland thusfar. Carson first made his literary mark as a poet before venturing into writing about traditional music. It is a joy to see his astounding love of and facility with language applied to Belfast, a city too many of us associate only with tragedy and strife. I've spent my obligatory weeks in Belfast, and found my own knowledge of the place just enough to bind me to the sweetness with which most of the vanished city of of Carson's kidhood is described. He lays out the map, and illustrates locations and people with clarity, but more often than not, Carson is immersed in the asides that make his work so pleasurable to read for we language buffs. Hs discusses the whys and wherefores of knitting in his family, the role of dinnsenchas (story of place names) in Irish, the post office in Northern Ireland and its legacy--the asides alone are worth the price-tag. Perhaps I love Carson's words too much. I certainly wish I could claim some small part of them. In the meantime, I'll read some of his poetry to sate myself while I wait for his next book to be published.

[Chloe Fulton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I would never finish this book.

The premise is excellent, but I don't think the style works for me. Carson is primarily a poet, so his prose is beautiful but as an author he becomes very tiring very quickly. He often writes in lists (which I loved) and takes long tangents into the etymology of a tiny strand of a story (which I didn't love).

This book is written as a memoir, but contains a lot of dreams, and fantastical tangents- which makes it so hard to keep track of what is real and what is fiction. This book is not intended to be read quickly, it's definitely one to be picked up every so often, as if it was poetry, to be transported to Belfast of a bygone era.

Carson is delving into his memories of growing up in Belfast, framing each chapter with a landmark or location that could still be familiar today, or featured in stories told by family members. This is their Belfast. I loved this aspect of it. I started reading this after seeing 'Belfast' in the cinema. Some aspects had the same vibe, although at times it felt like such a chore to find the gold.

I'll probably return to this book at some stage.

[Kathryn Shaw]

“Hence, there were dynasties of paths and destinations. Each family would tend towards certain entrances or adits, and the abstract place within was riddled with the swarming wormholes if their past and present; they moved, indeed, like slow illiterate teredos who might absorb the ink of letters oblivious to their freight of meaning, who browse on commas and full stops, and then enjoy a colon, inhabiting a sentence without digesting it. They had no thread of Ariadne.”

[sisterimapoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very unusual approach to the memoir. Dense at times, at others deliciously playful. I loved the way Carson followed his tangents, partly infuriating, mostly magical. The way one thought, and chapter led into the next made a possibly random set of ideas hang together very well. I feel I learnt as much about person as place while reading.

[Xenia Tran · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written journey through the Belfast of Ciaran's childhood and a warm tribute to his father, who was a great storyteller in his own right. Rich in detail, memory and imagination this was a true delight to read and a book I will happily read again one Winter sitting beside the fire.

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetic, beautiful, educational and just a wonderful read.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/268104.html[return][return]Ciaran Carson is one of Northern Ireland's best known poets, but this book is a prose rambling through the streets of Belfast, both geographically and literarily, interspersed with meditations on the English and Irish languages, his relationship with his father, and the nature of the literary life. For anyone like me who knows and loves the city, it's a quick and pleasant read, where we can share our memories with the author. He writes of his former home, "The Bunaglow", through whose gardens I once tried to take a short-cut; he remembers playing "off-ground tig", which is something I haven't thought of in 25 years; he explains the shape of Boyne Bridge and meditates on its name. In other cases I've had similar but not identical experiences - my school too had a forbidden forest and a pond nearby, though it was several miles to the south of his; I too had a disastrous tooth filling from an apprentice dentist (a friend of mine who was resitting his exams and did the job for me on the fly - badly).[return][return]I was very amused by the convincing link he establishes between the Crown Liquor Saloon and Doctor Who via Carol Reed's film Odd Man Out (another one for the Amazon wish list, I think, along with Cocteau's Orph

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, this memoir (fiction/prose-poem?) of a city and one of the greatest writers that city has ever produced, is both a study in the obsessive cataloguing of facts, images, memories and a powerful exploration of the ways in which we write and are written by our environment. Carson writes Belfast just as Belfast writes Carson. A wonderful, stunning, powerful read.

[Manuela · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Genre-defying', The Star Factory plays with cities, languages, stars and storytelling. Set in Belfast during The Troubles, it is a journey back into childhood and memory.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It has just rained, and the air beyond my skin is rinsed and sparkling.’ yeahhh I EAT that UP