Comments on: Capturing the present http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/ Mon, 26 Jun 2017 15:15:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.15 By: DGLM http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/comment-page-1/#comment-16300 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:01:32 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/#comment-16300 I think maybe the key to Gough's claim is this: "Reading award-winning Irish literary fiction, you wouldn't know television had been invented. Indeed, they seem apologetic about acknowledging electricity …"

I'd agree, Mary that the authors you cite (leaving aside Colfer, as I've not read him so can't speak to that!) aren't necessarily mired in the past(except when writing historical fiction, of course), but I'm not sure I'd say anything of theirs that I've read is terribly rooted in the present either. Maybe that's by design, and maybe it isn't as backward looking (or indeed problematic) as Gough claims. And maybe I've just got to read more!

But thanks all for the recommendations of authors who defy this claim–even if the claim itself isn't really worthy of as much worry as I might've given it.

And Green Knight, I'd love to hear the names of the authors you feel are the exceptions! I'm certainly not one to believe that women can't write literary fiction.

-Lauren

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/comment-page-1/#comment-16279 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:28:16 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/#comment-16279 'as there are plenty of women who write contemporary Irish novels'

Lauren's presumably keen to hear their names.

In the article she links to, women are mentioned as well as men. Off the top of my head, they seem to be just as bad as the men:
Anne Enright and Jennifer Johnston, for example, fall squarely into the tradition of miserable, quirky dark family secret stories; Claire Keegan doesn't write novels; Maeve Binchy – not in my name.

]]> By: Mary Witzl http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/comment-page-1/#comment-16272 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:38:01 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/#comment-16272 Eoin Colfer, Joseph O'Connor and Roddy Doyle spring to mind. Their novels aren't mired in the past.

Anonymous is right about self-identification. Irish identity is stronger in Boston than it is in Ireland, and many Americans who identify themselves as Irish are shocked by the reality of modern Ireland itself. Perhaps that's helped contribute to the popularity of the nostalgic sort of Irish novel Gough despises?

]]> By: Ellen B http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/comment-page-1/#comment-16271 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:25:23 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/#comment-16271 Kevin Power's Bad Day In Blackrock, published by Lilliput press, deals with Ireland in the middle of the Celtic Tiger economy.

The current global recession makes it feel like a period piece, but that's just because events have moved fast economically over the last year and a half or so.

It's good. Trust me, I'm Irish :p

]]> By: green_knight http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/comment-page-1/#comment-16269 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:11:12 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/#comment-16269 I notice without surprise that 'novelist' appears to mean 'male novelist' as there are plenty of women who write contemporary Irish novels, and they seem to be rather successful in the mainstream, but of course they don't count, because contemporary writing without angry young men isn't literature…

]]> By: Linda Johnson http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/comment-page-1/#comment-16263 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:38:52 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/#comment-16263 I absolutely loved "Bog Child" by Siobhan Dowd. It seemed to me to be in modern time or at least close enough.
I acquired quite a new vocabulary from it. I always write down somewhat uncommon words when I come across them in books for future use. I usually collect 6-10 or so from an average book, but from this book I collected a whopping 52 words. Many were cultural Irish words and words like kleenex that are brand names that become common words.
My favorite is -kerfuffle- which means a fuss or disturbance. How about this sentence, "his gansey was minging." translation, 'his hoodie smelled really bad'
I love it!

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.dystel.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/comment-page-1/#comment-16257 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:55:31 +0000 http://032453b.netsolhost.com/blog/2010/02/capturing-the-present/#comment-16257 Ian McDonald's Sacrifice of Fools – a 1996 book that's basically District 9, but smarter and set in Northern Ireland.

At the more literary end: John Banville's always worth a go.

A lot of Irish stuff published in London suffers from the problem that literary fiction has come to mean post-colonial angst.

There's always the problem of definition. As anyone who's been to Boston knows, self-identification as Irish gets louder the further away from Ireland someone is. When I was at university in the UK one of the professors dismissed a new hire, a specialist on Joyce, with 'I've never been a fan of Swiss literature'.

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