MLR, I03.3,20o8 847 Understanding JohnMcGahern. By DAVID MALCOLM. (Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature) Columbia: University of South Caro linaPress. 2007. xiv+i63 pp. $34.95. ISBN 978-I-57003-673-6. David Malcolm isProfessor ofLiterary Studies at theUniversity ofGdanisk, and he writes with expertise for thewide audience envisaged in this series, from students to non-academic readers looking forthekind of informed introductionthat will make the literature of another culture accessible. This book aims to coverMcGahern's fiction and itscritical reception. It itemizes critical effortstoplace his ceuvre among those of Beckett and Joyce, 'E' and George Moore, and such writers as Sean O'Faolain and Frank O'Connor, William Trevor, Colm Toibin, and JohnBanville, and setsMcGa hern's 'experimentality' (p. 5) and his 'pessimism' (p. 3) in 'both an Irish and a con tinentalEuropean context' (p. 4), bringing inFlaubert, Proust, and Chekhov, aswell asYeats, and recognizing a realism reminiscent ofGeorge Eliot. The focus, however, is firmlyon his own work, with studies of each novel and thevolumes of short stories. The guide is remarkably comprehensive, minutely organized, and articulate. Sub headings such as 'StoryMaterial' (p. 28) and 'Narrative Organization' (p. 33) give way tomore ambitious titles: 'Time, Transience, and Death' (p. 64), or even 'Place, Time, Change, Death, and History' (p. 130). On language and style, and certain aspects of structure and technique-point of view and narration particularly-a dis ciplined analytical approach provesmagisterial. Parataxis, thepervasive passive voice, polysyndeton, underlie McGahern's music, apparently, and the ineffablepoise which encodes experience both familiar and impossible toplumb must, afterall, be an effect achieved throughwords and theplacing ofwords. Understanding McGahern requires a recognition of this incantatory power. The signal earlywork, The Barracks, themasterpiece Amongst Women, and the haunting lastnovel, That TheyMay Face the Rising Sun, inparticular, ripen to such perception. Often, and effectively, Malcolm clambers inside the fictional score. Picking out the writer's craft, listening attentively,as iftoanother language, allows the reader towork critically,asking not only how but why the 'differentand opposed function' (p. I5) of the passive voice may 'embody the fluidityand speed of emotions' while italso 'de personalizes actions'. What this study hesitates toprosecute, however, ishow far the latent tension between these possibilities rests on the 'differentand opposed' strains of the intimate and theother thatentangle every engagement in Irish experience, in a history of oppression and conflict rooted close tohome. Itmay be toomuch to ask of an introductory guide, but it is the specific detail and thewider resonance of this historic and cultural dimension that McGahern's work demands. Without them, hearing theheft of the text is impossible. The critical prose goes limp,becomes opaque: 'The individual and complexly human ispresent inThat TheyMay Face the Rising Sun, but thenovel places thiswithin a group, and, indeed, a nonhuman context' (p. 130). Better, surely, thequotations from theoriginal: "'The bad go with the good, in and out the same revolving doors"' and "'We're no more than a puff ofwind out on the lake"' (p. I31). It is speech rhythms that registerboth personality and theweight of belonging within a people and a history, here.While Malcolm summarizes the 'subtle presence' ofhistory inconnection with the treatment of change, emigration, religion, and patriotism in thenovel, theembodiment of values in the rhythms and rituals of this 'peculiar text' (p. I I9) resists commentary, just as 'to a large extent, [thework] avoids theglamorous, thecolourful, and the convention ally exciting for themundane and the seemingly trivial' (p. I20). Describing this as 'a remarkable novel' does not do justice to that quality of resistance. Understanding JohnMcGahern may be a project beyond an introductory guide. Nevertheless, the scrupulous attention exercised in this study opens theway towards thataim. UNIVERSITY OF READING NICOLA BRADBURY ...
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