House of Splendid Isolation

Ireland has been on my mind lately. I've been craving sheperd's pie (and eating it), listening to old Pogues, new U2 and I absolutely love Amy MacDonald's album. I don't know, maybe it's spring that brought this on: all that green. In any case, searching for a good Irish novel, I gravitated to Edna O'Brien. I guess I'd never read her and thought I should start there.
House of Splendid Isolation is two seperate stories together, but always the story is of Ireland: What is Ireland? Who is truly Irish? And what is true love of country. Because of course you can't have a novel about Ireland without The Troubles as a backdrop.

Josie is an old widow in the titular house which is abruptly invaded by an IRA terrorist nicknamed the Beast. Like so many other things in the messy war for independence, McGreevey doesn't appear to live up to this name, and Josie herself is not what she appears. Captor and Captive must somehow coexist while forces--both physical and figurative--converge on them.

At first, Josie tries to get him to leave. "You see, it's not very nice at my time of life...It's not very convenient." She said, and wished that she had not said "my time of life." He apologised for the inconvenience, said there weren't many safe houses around, and that surely it was big enough for two.

"Not us two," she said tartly...

"We'll survive."

But of course, that's the big question. Can they, and will they survive?

I didn't like the mixing in of Josie's younger days with the present-day action. I thought it was a distraction and didn't really explain much about who she was and whether or not she would sympathize with McGreevey. I kind of skimmed those parts. I really liked the ambiguity inherent in the acts on both sides of the battle. Some of the Guards sent to chase down the Beast are conflicted, especially those born and bred locally. They know the myths, the songs, and they love Ireland as well. But who is right? Because we also hear the painful story of a woman wounded in a bank robber (presumably done to bankroll terrorism) who recites to the doctor all the names she'd chosen for the child she is about to lose. Beast, indeed.

As the story goes on, the race between the Guards and McGreevey--both of whom have a job to do--takes on an inevitability that seems to symbolize the continuous race for the ownership of Ireland. There is also the constant threat of betrayal. I know Ireland has been stable recently (barring a few deaths), but the conflict still exists and this book--already old (1994)--is a reminder of that.
There's some nice writing here. One image that struck in my mind about the decaying grand house was "...over the light switch, like some rustic fetish, a tranche of toadstools ripening in the sun." How lovely the word "tranche", but also how gross. And McGreevey is almost electrocuted turning on said light.

Another nice image: Heaven to sit in front of the stove in the nicely varnished room [of the boat] and smoke, and watch the dark coming on, that nice queer sensation of dark coming over water, creeping over it, and the mountains gettting dark too and bulky..."

It still makes me want to visit Ireland.