A few liberties taken with the facts, but an excellent choice for readers interested in Anglo-Irish history.
Set in the 19th century, this novel follows the lives of Protestant Anglo-Irish landowners William Winship and his adopted son, James, mixing fictional characters with historical figures.
Well-written with a mix of action, adventure, politics and historical detail, McCarthy’s novel throws readers right into the action, as young William faces a duel over his fiancee. His opponent, Lord Sudbury, will, along with his family, remain a persistent nemesis to the Winships. Most of the book, however, focuses on James as he grows from boy to man. He’s actually Seamus Tobin, the son of William’s gardener. After multiple tragedies, including the deaths of Seamus’ parents and of William’s wife and son, William adopts Seamus, Anglicizes his name and sets him on the path of a proper Protestant gentleman, including stops at Eton and Oxford. James, however, has a penchant for trouble. After being caught in a basement nightclub, he’s expelled from Oxford through the Sudburys’ machinations. James opts for a military career to redeem himself, becoming an officer of the 10th Kings Lancers in India. There, he again falls in with the wrong sort, amasses debt and is drummed out in disgrace. He finally reaches his stride in the Jenkins Horse, an unconventional regiment whose members wear native garb and take on many Indian customs. While reining in his own shortcomings, he demonstrates valor in combat. Along the way, McCarthy portrays some fascinating, well-drawn characters: Oliver Locke, an outrageous dandy styled after Oscar Wilde; Reg Archer, a dashing, womanizing officer; Rajah Ali, an Anglophile Indian prince who delights in philosophical discourse; and Paddy Tierney, an Irish sergeant who speaks endlessly of taking back Ireland through land ownership. Ali and Tierney, in particular, help shape James’ budding support for Irish home rule. When James returns to Ireland, he enters politics as a Tory, but the racism of his own party and his growing respect for Charles Stewart Parnell, founder of the Irish Parliamentary Party, help solidify his political stance. James switches parties and is eventually chosen by Parnell to be his successor. What’s most impressive is the way James’ views on Irish independence develop—slowly, logically and realistically, either through significant interactions with other characters or his own observations.
A few liberties taken with the facts, but an excellent choice for readers interested in Anglo-Irish history.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1475263022
Page Count: 452
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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