![]() ![]() The past is never neutral, but must be fought over and claimed. ![]() The young Cyril and his friends drink with Brendan Behan, and want to know how much of his novel Borstal Boy is fiction and how much autobiography. Historical figures mingle with fictional ones, words are put into mouths, gossip simmers and reputations shudder crazily. By then the permanent, unquestionable structure of Catholic Ireland will have all but vanished, as the power of the church dissolves in scandal and shame.īoyne’s sombre 2014 novel A History of Loneliness anatomised such corruption and abuse, and he returns to track these seismic changes in Irish society with a broader, bawdier and more comedic sweep of narrative in The Heart’s Invisible Furies. He grows up as Cyril Avery, adopted child of a famous Irish female novelist, and tells the story of his life up to 2015. The opening episode is narrated by the child in Catherine’s womb. The church writes and enforces the laws controlling sexuality and social behaviour. As the novel begins, Ireland is a young republic and effectively a theocracy. ![]() Catherine’s journey to Dublin is the beginning of a picaresque, lolloping odyssey for the individual characters and for the nation that confines them. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |