Харесва ми да съм в ирландски семейства, колкото и да не приличат на българските семейства, колкото и да са смразяващи отношенията понякога. Разбира се като се замисля повече, предпочитам да ги наблюдавам отстрани, през книгите, не реално да съм член от тях…Още в началото на този роман започнах д...
The Dark, widely acclaimed, yet infamously banned, is John McGahern’s sensitive, perceptive, and beautifully written portrayal of a young man’s coming-of-age in rural Ireland. Imaginative and introverted, the boy is successful in school, but bitterly confused by the guilt-inducing questions he en...
William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And ye...
I read this one ten years ago. When he died in 2006 I wrote a little about it for the website of the bookstore that employed me at the time:I was very sad today (March 30, 2006) to learn of the passing of the Irish writer John McGahern. I would like to take this small corner of cyberspace to reme...
With this magnificently assured new novel, John McGahern reminds us why he has been called the Irish Chekhov, as he guides readers into a village in rural Ireland and deftly, compassionately traces its natural rhythms and the inner lives of its people. Here are the Ruttledges, who have forsaken t...
I've been reading this on and off for quite a while. Short stories between other novels. I think this might be the first time I've ever had a very strong personal reaction to a set of short stories.McGahern has always been there floating on the periphery for me. A man who comes up regularly as an...
One of the preeminent Irish writers of our time, John McGahern has captivated readers with such poignant and heart-wrenching novels as Amongst Women and The Dark. Moving between tragedy and savage comedy, desperation and joy, McGahern's first novel, The Barracks, is one of haunting power. Elizabe...
They dug trenches and were paid by the yard. The trenches were in places where machines could not easily go, and the work was dangerous, the earth walls having to be shuttered up as they went along, the shutters held apart by metal bars with adjustable flat squares on both ends. Both men worked u...
It was only the slow growing distance from the ring of reeds round the shore that told that the boat moved at all on the lake. More slowly still, the light was going from the August evening.I was feeling leaden with tiredness but did not want to sleep. I had gone on the river in order to be alone...