Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe

Say Nothing:  A true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe.  This book just kept showing up on the best books in 2019.  I am a bit Irish obsessed.

Started: 2/10/2020
Completed: 2/13/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Best books list

Review:

So, the Irish just seem to enjoy poetry in every day use.  Keefe quotes a description of the use of tear gas from a local newspaper in West Belfast as "...a kind of binding agent, a substance that could weld the crowd together in common sympathy and common hatred for the men who gassed them..."  Wow.

This book is sad.  That is to be expected of any book that talks about "the troubles."  I thought, at first, that it was very sympathetic to the IRA, but as the book progressed, I realized that the author had just given everyone an even hand.  I'm so used to thinking of the IRA in negative terms (as terrorists) that when they were treated fairly it seemed like they were being treated kindly.  That was a bit of a shock to my own biases.

I had no idea that the members of the IRA had given personal oral histories to Boston College.  I don't know how I missed the headlines, but for whatever reason, I was unaware.  It was odd to me how much detail the author had about the way that various people were thinking.  I kept double checking to be sure it wasn't a novel.  It isn't.  What an amazing work.

The Law of Dreams, Peter Behrens

The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens is a book that received the Governor General's Award for English Fiction.   This book is based on the Irish Potato Famine.  For the life of me, I can't remember where or why I picked it up.  I have long had an interest in Ireland and the Irish in general after visiting, but I cannot remember buying this book.

Started:  3/4/2015
Completed:  Cannot remember
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended by:  Nobody


Words and Concepts for which I sought help:

Billing -- the action or fact of being publicized in a certain way

cadging -- ask for or obtain (something to which one is not strictly entitled)

conacre -- to sublet land

Haggard -- area adjacent to the farm yard (Irish slang)

metaled road -- A road surface formed with a mixture of tar and stone chippings


Plangeant -- a loud, reverberating sound usually associated with melacholy

profligate -- recklessly extravagant or wasteful in the use of resources

skirl -- a shrill wailing sound, especially of bag pipes

Review:

The book was interesting and started quietly, but seemed to move rather quickly into the horrors of the potato famine.  The adventures of the protagonist seem truly unrealistic, but suspending disbelief, I moved on.  The characters were hard to like and the horrors which were experienced automatically distanced the reader.  I did not enjoy it.