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nigellicus 's review for:
Seek the Fair Land
by Walter Macken
I've always had a hard time engaging with Ireland as a subject for fiction. It's like a teenager being embarrassed by their Dad, even though they love their Dad they can't stand to see him up in front of everyone carrying on and expecting people to take him seriously. So maybe I'm finally out of that difficult teenage phase once and for all.
This is pure brilliant.
Dominick MacMahon and his two children and a priest flee the Cromwellian massacre of Drogheda. There is as much horror and brutality ahead of them as their is behind - can they find a place to live without fear? The soldier Murdoc who Dominick saves twice might be able to provide it for them, but he may have to sell his very soul to the devil to do it - the repulsive Coote, ruler of Connaught.
The oddest thing about this wonderful book is the presence of Sebastian, the priest. Such a saintly figure should rankle a bit, yet it's possible to detect ambiguity under the surface of his depiction. It's hard for many modern Irish readers not to view Catholicism as a malignant force in Irish history, yet so welded to the Irish identity and clung to so strongly by the oppressed masses (while all the time the Spanish Inquisition is merrily doing its thing.) So when Sebastian starts to preach - particularly his denouncing Murdoc and Columba - it's natural to despise him from our point of view. And yet Sebastian is a saintly man, full of love and kindness, and he himself is not giving the people anything they do not desperately crave. He embodies the courage of the type as well as the subtle, corrupting, oppressive misogyny and conservatism. Isn't that just like us, as more than one character notes of the Irish temperament through the book.
Anyway, this is written at a level close to perfection, whether it is describing people or places or psychological states or brutal horrors. it is a big tale of small people surviving wretched misery and nightmare, but its achievement as a novel and its humanity transcends the degradations of its subject. A classic for a reason.
This is pure brilliant.
Dominick MacMahon and his two children and a priest flee the Cromwellian massacre of Drogheda. There is as much horror and brutality ahead of them as their is behind - can they find a place to live without fear? The soldier Murdoc who Dominick saves twice might be able to provide it for them, but he may have to sell his very soul to the devil to do it - the repulsive Coote, ruler of Connaught.
The oddest thing about this wonderful book is the presence of Sebastian, the priest. Such a saintly figure should rankle a bit, yet it's possible to detect ambiguity under the surface of his depiction. It's hard for many modern Irish readers not to view Catholicism as a malignant force in Irish history, yet so welded to the Irish identity and clung to so strongly by the oppressed masses (while all the time the Spanish Inquisition is merrily doing its thing.) So when Sebastian starts to preach - particularly his denouncing Murdoc and Columba - it's natural to despise him from our point of view. And yet Sebastian is a saintly man, full of love and kindness, and he himself is not giving the people anything they do not desperately crave. He embodies the courage of the type as well as the subtle, corrupting, oppressive misogyny and conservatism. Isn't that just like us, as more than one character notes of the Irish temperament through the book.
Anyway, this is written at a level close to perfection, whether it is describing people or places or psychological states or brutal horrors. it is a big tale of small people surviving wretched misery and nightmare, but its achievement as a novel and its humanity transcends the degradations of its subject. A classic for a reason.