Recent Encounters with Ireland

Tags

irish film, irish literature, irish television

We recently watched the intriguing but utterly inconclusive Series One of “The Fall” on Netflix (apparently Series Two is in production, and one can hope that it will provide the closure that was spectacularly absent in Series One. Not that it ended as a cliffhanger, precisely. But we were still a bit irked that it ended where it did), which is set in Belfast. I’ve also been reading Joyce’s Ulysses these past couple of weeks, when I have the time to do a spot of reading.

The combination got me thinking about Irish works I’ve encountered over the years and enjoyed.

Here are a couple of additional highlights:

Tana French’s books.

I read these a few years back and really liked them. My favourite of hers is Faithful Place, followed by The Likeness and In the Woods, both of which I found really compelling, despite flaws. Broken Harbour was a somewhat distant fourth, from a narrative and character perspective (part of the issue was that I didn’t like any of the characters and I found the story arc ultimately unsatisfying), though it was certainly wonderfully atmospheric and creepy, and shifted between a wistful sadness and something far darker, all of which was wrought with a subtle complexity that makes the book worth checking out in itself, in spite of the fact that neither the characters nor the conclusion were much to my liking. A haunting work.

Democracy’s Capitol: Ruminations on D.C.

The Jefferson Memorial: a statue of Jefferson, set against the Pantheon-like dome of the memorial pavilion.

“You’ll love D.C. It’s like a celebration of democracy,” Angela,* the woman with whom we shared a taxi into the city, declared with a grin. She was visiting her daughter, who was studying at Georgetown University. “I lived abroad for a number of years, and each time I come back to D.C., I’m reminded of how great it is.”

The taxi driver also joined the conversation, telling us about his experiences as an immigrant in the U.S., as we approached the National Mall at twilight.

“What a beautiful way to see it for the first time,” Angela exclaimed, as we passed the White House on our way to our hotel.

Over the next several days of our whirlwind tour of the city, others would also tell us how D.C. is a “tribute to democracy”, or even “the center of democracy.”

And yet, the portrait of the city that emerged for me was far more intriguing: it is one of the key narratives through which a nation has chosen to represent itself, to its own people, and to visitors from abroad.

D.C. is a place of Roman or Hellenic aspect, resonant with echoes of the Athenian, democratic city state and the Roman republic of old. The National Mall and its surrounding monuments embody elegant austerity on a vast and grandiose scale. But, most fascinatingly of all, the core of the city, with its monuments and sites, manifests and narrates the mythos that a country has created for itself. Against the backdrop of the vision of a secular nation (even if that secularity seems somewhat elusive these days) and the separation of religion from state, I wondered whether this mythos had been created in order to facilitate a bridging between theology and ideology. It was almost as if at some deep level, the nation-building designers of the city had known that new saints and magnificent, heroic mythologies had to be created in order for people to resonate deeply, and align themselves with the patriotism of the growing nation.

As we walked the precincts of the District of Columbia, I couldn’t evade the impression that the monuments were like shrines along a secular pilgrimage (“…and this was where Lincoln sat–we have recreated the box to look as it would have at the time… afterwards they took him across the street to the house across the way–you can visit there next–and that’s where he breathed his last…”): lives of the saints and narratives of martyrdom and sacrifice to the great father nation–the patriotic cause.