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My own transition from adolescence to adulthood was far from smooth, so I enjoy reading coming-of-age stories because I can relate to them on a very emotional level, and this novel is one of the most realistic to date, for many reasons, including sexual self-experimentation (as a Catholic, the main character is plagued with guilt), self-doubt, the confusion and fear, and so abundantly on.
But what makes this story all that and much more are the intense thoughts and ideas of this intelligent young man. The more he emotes, the more I also felt. He struggles with age-old philosophical questions and through introspection decides whether to become a priest. I highlighted some brilliant quotes about life and death in my copy. I could relate to his "dog's chance" of succeeding as a result of an unsupportive father, with whom he has a love-hate relationship. A perfectly able young man hobbled by a household of fear, anger, and constant complaining....
McGahern's literary style of switching among different points of view, as well as alternating between past and present tenses, truly sets the appropriate mood, and it's pure genius. This novel is timely considering the sex-abuse scandals in the Church. Although it feels as if the story ends abruptly, and somewhat anti-climactic, leaving the reader wanting for more, I like to think that it signifies a good book. I wish more authors would write true-to-life stories like this one.
"The Dark" is lusciously written with a poetic grace hard to find in most contemporary novels. McGahern gently pulls the reader in, not only to the boy's psychological world, but also into the physical: the rural Irish landscape, the dark fearful Catholic confessional box and the squalid Irish farmhouse dominated by an abusive father. McGahern pulls you in, but does not need to hold you there; you'll stay of your own free will in this simultaneously simple and complex world, and find yourself haunted by it after you leave.
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Within his own household, Michael upholds all the values he fought for years ago. He's a hard, independent man, beholden to no one, and his word is law. To his family, however, he is often a tyrant--obstinate, cruel, full of hatred, quick to anger, and reluctant to apologize-and his second wife Rose his three daughters, and his two sons are "inordinately grateful for the slightest good will." Outwardly religious, Michael daily recites the Rosary, looking for religious help for his inner turmoil and the complications of his daily life. As he says, "the war was the best part of our lives. Things were never so simple and clear again."
With a main character who is never endearing, McGahern challenges the reader to empathize with Michael and understand why the women in his family remain tied to him emotionally, even after they have successfully escaped his domination and established independent lives away from the farm. Gradually, the reader begins to understand the overpowering need to form connections with the past, even when it is not pleasant--to forgive one's parents for their limitations while remaining strong and faithful to oneself. In clear, straightforward prose of immense power, McGahern piles mundane detail upon detail, creating a sensitive family story of great universality, one which will give the reader much to ponder.
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The Ruttledges have returned to Ireland after advertising careers in London, renewing connections with their kin and settling "by the lake," where they are greeted first by Jamesie Murphy and his wife Mary, who bring food, and then by the unforgettable roue of the village, John Quinn, who wants them to find him a wife from out of town, as he's already too well known to be successful in his own village. Other characters, each unique, give color and a sense of reality to life by the lake: Jimmy Joe McKiernan, the local Provo leader who led the breakout from Long Kesh; the pathetic Bill Evans, an orphan brought up by the nuns, then farmed out to an unfeeling family to work when he was 14; Cecil Pierce, the local Protestant; Johnny Murphy, Jamesie's brother, who visits each summer from London, where he lives in relative exile after being dumped by the woman he loved; the Shah, a Ruttledge relative who became hugely successful in the junk business; Patrick Ryan, who never seems to finish the building projects he's doing for his neighbors; and many others who illustrate the charms and frustrations of small town life and the forces which have shaped it. Significantly, all the main characters are middle-aged or older, the young having been lured already to big cities. As one character says, "After us there'll be nothing but the water hen and swan."
As the reader shares the passage of the year with the residents, observing the celebrations of birth, the rites of death, and the homely activities which give meaning to life by the lake, it's impossible not to feel a sense of profound melancholy and to mourn the loss of this rapidly disappearing life. As McGahern himself says, "[The days] did not feel particularly quiet or happy, but through them ran the sense...that there would come a time when these days would be looked back on as happiness, all that life could give of contentment and peace." With its profound openness to the sensations of the moment, its constant awareness of even the subtlest changes in nature, and its joy in human connections, it's a life which few harried city dwellers ever know.
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