Reading matters

'That They May Face the Rising Sun' by John McGahern

Fiction - paperback; Faber and Faber; 304  pages; 2003.

This book, published in the USA under the title By the Lake, was the late John McGahern's last novel.

It is a beautiful, slow-moving book that mirrors the gentle rhythm of rural life and brims with a subdued love of nature.

In its depiction of the changing seasons and the farming calendar -- the birth of lambs, the cutting of hay -- it tells an almost universal story about humankind and its relationship to the land and the climate. But this is more than a book about what it is like to live in the Irish countryside. It also tells an important, often overlooked tale, of how humans interact with each other when they live in small communities.

'The Leavetaking' by John McGahern

Fiction - paperback; Faber and Faber; 176  pages; 2000

First published in 1974, McGahern revised The Leavetaking, his third novel, a decade later because he thought it "lacked that distance, that inner formality or calm, that all writing, no matter what it is attempting, must possess". The result is a tautly written novel composed of two halves, each radically different to the other.

Essentially it is a love story, about a teacher, Patrick, who is facing dismissal by the school authorities for marrying an American divorcee while on a year's sabbatical in England. A battle of wills ensues: he won't resign because he does not feel he has done anything wrong; the church won't recognise his marriage and make it 'holy'. His wife, meanwhile, is holed up in rooms in Howth, a seaside suburb of Dublin, happily going about her business until they are found out.

'Amongst Women' by John McGahern

Fiction - paperback; Faber and Faber; 184  pages; 1991

Amongst Women opens with Michael Moran, a former solider in the Irish War of Independence, holed up at home in his dying days, surrounded by his three adult daughters who want him to "shape up" and "get better".

"Who cares? Who cares anyhow?" he says, when they fuss over him, willing him "not to slip away". This one statement -- the fourth sentence in the book -- reveals so much about Moran's character that it seems pointless to say much more about him, other than he is probably the most annoyingly cantankerous and gruff literary character I've had the pleasure of 'meeting' for a long time.

'The Dark' by John McGahern

Fiction - paperback; Faber & Faber; 192 pages; 2000

First published in 1965, this aptly titled book is about one boy's painful adolescence and his confused, ambiguous relationship with his violent widower father.

Set in rural Ireland during the 1950s and 60s, the unnamed protagonist longs to escape his father's abusive shadow. But the only real options open to him are the priesthood or the farm.

When he concentrates on his schoolwork and wins a scholarship to university, it looks like he might have found the escape route he was looking for. But how will he explain his decision to his cantankerous and manipulative father? And if he leaves, how will his younger siblings cope without anyone to defend them?

'Memoir' by John McGahern

Nonfiction - paperback; Faber and Faber; 288 pages; 2005

I read this beautiful, lyrical and tear-inducing autobiography in just two sittings. With no chapters or natural breaks, I just could not tear my eyes away from McGahern's seamless narrative.

Concentrating mainly on his childhood and adolescence growing up in rural Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s, it is very much a love letter to his adored mother, an accomplished school teacher, who died of breast cancer when he was eight years old.

It is also a heartfelt exploration of the ambiguous and complicated relationship with his father, a police sergeant, who ruled the family -- McGahern, the eldest child, had six younger siblings -- with a vicious tongue, temperamental mood swings and powerful fists.

'The Barracks' by John McGahern

Fiction - paperback; Faber and Faber; 232  pages; 2000

After years of freedom working as a nurse in war-torn London, Elizabeth Reegan returns to the remote Irish village of her childhood. Here she marries a widower and becomes step-mother to three young children.

The widower is the sergeant of a three-man barracks (station) who longs to escape the police force. Bitter about his job, he runs a nice side business growing and cutting turf and does not seem particularly worried about being caught by the ever-prowling superintendent Quirke, who keeps a watchful eye on him.

In the claustrophobic surrounds of the barracks in which the police live and work, Elizabeth busies herself with the small but vital (and often unnoticed) tasks that are necessary for the smooth running of the household: cooking, cleaning, gardening, stoking the fire and minding the children.