Picture if you will a beautiful land, storied with history, under the greatest of pressure, yet a tale told as lightly as a ray of sunlight poking through the constant clouds. That land is Ireland, the history one of occupation, the pressure is that of revolution, and the tale is one of a crumbling old hotel being comically mismanaged. Set in the days after the First World War but before Irish Independence, Troubles tells the tale of Major Brendan Archer, who, while recovering from shell shock finds out he is supposedly engaged to a woman whom he is barely familiar with, the daughter of Edward Spencer, the Anglo-Irish owner of a resort hotel on the Irish coast.
Written in 1973, during the heady day of, well, The Troubles, as they are blithely called, English author James Farrell created a small world of impoverished English ladies, failing country squires, black-hearted paramilitaries, indifferent young women, and one sad, yet determined English officer. All the while, in the background are the Shiners, the English slang term for the Irish freedom fighters/terrorists called Sinn Fein. Faceless, nameless, we never get to know any of these people, and that is a clear choice of the author, as it reflects the reality of Anglo-Irish life.
This is a tale that starts off slow and fairly silly and gains speed and darkness as it moves along. In the main, it takes place in and around the failing and falling apart Majestic Hotel, a dying resort on the south Irish coast. As the book moves along, more and more of the physical structure of the hotel becomes uninhabitable and downright dangerous at times. The attacks of the Shiners are a low-level noise in the background, with occasional flare-ups as shown through newspaper articles at first, but gradually coming closer and closer to our main characters. At the same time, we watch the mental disintegration of the hotel’s owner, Edward Spencer.
Our tale ends as we already know it will, with Irish Independence. Along the way we see the rise of the Black and Tans, rank bigotry against the local Catholics, fear setting in the local Anglo’s, raw violence and terror, and our sad major muddling through. It is a fair bit heavy-handed in relating the falling hotel to the falling English presence, but it is done in such a humorous if sad fashion that we will forgive this. And while I do not know if that was deliberate or not, I do know that for the most part, we are in the hands of a master. Indeed, Farrell gradually leads us from a seemingly inconsequential, very seventies novel, to a fine examination of people losing everything they know to an enemy that they feel should be on the same side as them. As I said, we really do not see the Shiners, a deliberate choice of Farrells as the English did not see them either, at least not as a people who deserve self-determination.
Troubles is the first of Farrell’s Empire trilogy, a set of novels fictionally documenting various key actions in the fall of the British Empire. The Siege of Krishnapur, about the Sepoy revolt in India that was the downfall of the East India Company in 1857, is the second book, while The Singapore Grip, set during the Japanese takeover of that city in 1942, is the final book. These form a loose trilogy, as there are no real crossover characters or storylines. While I have not read those two, there are copies on my shelves, and they will be read in their own good time. And that is the surest way of knowing that this was a good and worthy book, the desire to read other works of the author.
Sadly, aside from a few early titles that amount to little more than juvenilia, these three books are all that our author wrote. JG Farrell, a two-time Booker award winner, died off the Irish coast in 1979, falling into the sea while fishing. He was 44 years old.
I wonder what dirt he had on the Clintons.
Over there, isn’t it The Family that whacks people? Not entirely convinced Louis Mountbatten was killed by the IRA…
And yet they couldn’t kill White Trash Meghan.
Thanks, zwak!
I was worried about my ‘to read’ list dropping to single digits!
/glances over boxes of unread books
/glances over pages of books to buy.
Right?? It seems the more books I read, the more books make it on the want to read list.
And guns too.
/looks over long queue of deferred maintenance and unshot guns
Thanks a lot! I come here to lurk and occasionally snark, and you’re making me want to read an actual book. Sheesh.
Is there a lot of sex?
No Sex Please, We’re British
Obligatory
I have heard that joke many times…from people who apparently have never been around British women.
To be fair, they make the same joke
Cashing in on a modest success?
Good Omens was a mildly amusing production that sort of captured the flavor of a book that should not actually be filmable. So it was a success, I guess.
So now, they’re going to invent a new follow-on storyline to cash in on the success.
I love the book. The show was just OK. I probably won’t watch S2.
Apparently Gaiman is involved, and he and Pratchett had “discussed” a sequel. But Gaiman didn’t stop American Gods from being a disaster. So, I have little hope for S2.
The book is one of my all-time favorites. The prospect of watching the show (with David Tennant!!! ***swoon!***) was the only thing tempting me to sign up for Amazon Prime. If it was just OK, I guess I’m glad I never took the plunge.
The principle characters were enjoyable.
The book is full of footnotes and narration that is rich and complex. The show relies on a narrator that just doesn’t quite work when it’s not the voice in my head.
Oh, yes! The footnotes! My favorite (I think I even bookmarked it) was the one explaining the old British monetary system. A handy guide, especially when reading older Brit lit.
Lindybeige has a long but interesting video on the history of British coinage.
Great video. I’ve watched it before.
Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for sharing it.
OT – Thank God!
Bidens to travel to Florida in wake of building collapse
He CARES! We are saved because the President CARES!!!!
With any luck he will use a magic marker to scratch out a little sign for a photo op
https://mondrian.mashable.com/2014%252F05%252F08%252Fae%252FMichelleOba.7540e.jpg%252F950x534.jpg?signature=1pB49_NriAM8f6pK-1UkAZpPero=
#buildBack…uhm…uh…theThing
They could save some time and write one of those little signs with #IDGAF and pass it on from one administration to the next.
“# it’s all about meeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Something something hasn’t been to Europe either.
More OT NYT – Two papers in one!
“As Parents Forbid Covid Shots, Defiant Teenagers Seek Ways to Get Them”
“Why Young Adults Are Among the Biggest Barriers to Mass Immunity”
Is it also a floor wax?
Why not both!
You know who else cared about a destroyed building in the US?
Timothy McVeigh?
Oh oh oh….Andrew Kehoe?
The More You Know
How about another German who wrecked havoc in France?
Spectator who caused massive crash at Tour de France missing after fleeing the country
Because of the details (got on a flight and fled France, etc.), either they are just making shit up and don’t know who she is, or they know who she is and aren’t saying.
My thoughts too. I’m going with option #2.
Or the surveillance state has matched photo/video evidence of the person boarding an airplane.
If they’ve done that, they have her name.
Worst case, they have a manifest and a short list of names to work from. Most likely, they already have the name.
Do they entertain the idea of Mens Rea in Europe? I think I know the answer…
I heard on one of the Jomboy podcasts that she worked for the Tour and was already named in a lawsuit.
Charlton Heston?
Enjoy some gibberish from a racist judge:
MLK is still spinning in his grave.
jury selection process that was susceptible to abuse…
Derek Chavin cosigns this.
Latinx
How would they even know how many people in the pool were alt-gender POCs, anyway?
They only populate the jury pool with people who have pronouns in their twitter and tumblr bios.
I look forward to my libertarian jury if they’re getting serious about this representation thing.
sounds perfectly reasonable
On the other hand, the charge – Possession Of Ammunition In Connection To A Shooting, shouldn’t exist.
Nice review zwak.
Makes me want to read it. I know little about The Troubles. I should know more, but my interest in Irish history has been confined to being thankful Great^2 Grand Dad left.
Thanks, I’ll add this trilogy to my “to buy” list.
Insurrection!
They’re preventing the government from doing its job! Treason!
Needz moar firebombs.
Be patient.
“fully funded Civilian Climate Corps”
Go fuck yourselves you Red Guard wannabes.
Should go with the OG CCC. The Civilian Conservation Corps. But then again they may like labor camps.
Shadow2 #2 is on it’s way back from Cajun Gunworks. Yay!
Now to go buy #3 and #4. Two identical guns really ain’t enough these days…
Sweet.
Heh. “But I already have mags for it, so it’s like saving money.”
With a P365, that’s not much of a joke…
#1 – Carry or Match gun.
#2 – Practice gun, to avoid tearing up #1.
#3 – Spare, in case #1 or #2 develops a fault and needs to go in for repairs.
#4 – Emergency offsite spare, cached with a trusted friend.
See, logic and reason demand that we buy our guns in quads…
Your sail is in a most pleasing shape. I do need three more Para-Ordnance P12s Jiminy Cricket, I need to move to a free land; NYC makes exercising the 2A very, very expensive.
I do need three more Para-Ordnance P12s
Good luck, since Paras haven’t been made for years.
Mine’s at the gunsmith getting the trigger return spring exchanged for a CGW one. Fortunately I won’t need it until July 18. SCSA and IDPA until then.
Sweet! And yeah, that trigger return spring is evil. The entire CZ trigger system is pretty baroque.
Nice!
I just picked up 1000 rounds of 9mm over at sgammo. Prices are starting to get closer to reasonableish.
I have noticed some pullback on ammo prices. Still way high compared to the Before Times.
They are, slowly but surely. I’m hoping for some nice sales around the end of the year.
I hope so.
And yet I still can’t find AA trap loads.
Antiaircraft traps are notoriously difficult to find.
Not Alcoholics Anonymous trap loads?
::tries to imagine how that would work. Gives up almost immediately::
Nice
Big Rocket!
https://www.spacex.com/launches/
Nevermind, rain delay……
/bummer
Never a delay on Rocket 69.
I. Am. Intrigued.
Ninety years old, the man’s impressive.
That’s why he will always be James T. Fucking Kirk.
I’m surprised that my house was cooler than outside – 89 indoors versus 91 outdoors.
I’ve gotten home and started trying to cool the place down. The weather map has heat warnings and scattered thunderstorms all over.
At least I don’t have to drive anywhere else today.
Except I tripped the damn breaker. I’ve run an extension cord to shift the fans to the bedroom’s circuit and reduce the load on the living room power. Worst case I’m going to have to shut off a computer or two.
Welcome back. Here in NJ our power has gone out twice in the last half hour. At least it’s entertaining; the outage apparently tripped my neighbor’s security system, and I heard a thunderous voice:
YOU ARE IN A RESTRICTED AREA. LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!!!
STEVE SMITH is in the house!
AC has gotten it down to 86 indoors.
Hope your power stays on from here on out.
Yours as well. 86 degrees is no fun (cue OWMC with tales from the burning sands)
That’s been my fear here. I was surprised, but JCP&L actually has trucks riding around proactively checking lines.
I believe this is the first I’ve seen this since I lived here quite a few years ago.
We have PSE&G. No trucks to be seen.
Who supply my “G”.
I would love to know how at the middle of the last century they divided up all the electric utilities here. Most surrounding places here are PSE&G.
National Grid has been okay. But they are a UK company.
They bought NiMo (Niagara Mohawk) about whom I never heard anything but complaints, but I was never a NiMo customer, because I didn’t have my own place until after the sale.
Though They did have a neat looking headquarters in my old hometown.
I’ve got to admit that’s a cool building.
It’s like a mini version of the American Standard Building. Designed to look like a radiator.
American Standard Building AMERICAN RADIATOR BLDG (Formerly).
Likely some cash deposits were involved.
JCP&L’s parent company (FirstEnergy) got hit massively due to another subsidiary’s (Ohio Edison) negligence that caused, in large part, the massive August 14, 2003 outage. After that, the internal focus on transmission and distribution reliability became very pointed.
I remember that vividly. I was stuck in NYC and couldn’t get home.
For the record, and in my (and Dayton’s) defense, #NotMyElectricCompany.
I’m still trying to adjust to Dayton Power & Light – the name they’ve had my entire life – changing their name to AES Ohio, with nary an explanation of what AES stands for. I’m comforting myself with this bit of humorous musical nostalgia. (Tres, did you put me onto this?)
AES is a merchant power company that has spent a bunch of money buying up smaller generators around the company and operating them when the original owner doesn’t want them anymore. For instance, they operate steam plants and cogen plants that are attached to other facilities like chemical plants when the original owners want to get out of utilities. AES also owns some dedicated gas turbine plants in the LA area, in particular one in Redondo Beach that I think might be shut down now?
I think they bought most of the generation capability of some of the smaller plants on the ohio/KY border that were originally built to provide power to some nuclear fuel production and research facilities.
OK! Thanks for the info.
I’m still gonna miss “POWER & LIGHT!!!” 🙁
Jesus Christ Power and Light?
Jersey Cshitty
That’s what I say when they brown me out as they so like to do.
Sigh…
Japanese Singer Hikaru Utada Comes Out as Non-Binary
Rather large pop star who hasn’t produced much in the last 5 years or so. I actually like most of her (at the time) stuff.
That said Japanese language makes it ridiculously easy to avoid gender references. Of note, the standard, Mr. Mrs, Miss, Ms. “san” makes no distinction by sex. And culturally, the Japanese are just going to ignore this. So the only way to make this push an agenda is to do so in English. Naturally.
Never heard of him/her/it.
She’s not had a good life. Came from a well to do family in the music business, with a mother and father who fought like there was no tomorrow. Mother was a well known singer who committed suicide. From memory I believe jumped from a tall building. She herself had a failed marriage.
On the small world side – some of the staff at my Japanese language school went to school with her when she lived in NYC. She’s bilingual and actually tried and failed as a pop musician in the US first, before she gained success in Japan.
Saw the Mx. (“mix” or “mux”) in the article. Earliest use is the late 70s. In 2017 a couple articles claimed it’s gaining popularity. First I’m hearing of it.
I can’t imagine sounding off to a drill instructor, “MUX, AYE AYE, MUX!!!”
Some sci-fi book I read called everyone “M.” The writer didn’t seem to have an agenda or anything, it was just the style in that universe.
Isn’t that the French abbreviation for “Monsieur”?
Everybody in that universe is James Bond’s boss.
I prefer “mux”. Its an artificial abbreviation of no word at all, so I feel free to pronounce it however I want.
Similarly with Lat-inks. Don’t know how the lefty nutters say it should be pronounced, and don’t care.
“Zwak the Jolly Swagman reads a book in his usual timely manner.”
Too busy stuffing jumbucks into your tucker bag?
‘Twas brillig.
In the slithey coves?
Only if they gyred and gimbled in the wabe.
Do you even Waltz Matilda, bro?
Sure!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HkOMiA_uGso
zOMG Serena slipped on the grass at Wimbledon and the newsheads are in quad-box panic mode.
JFC.
Something something grass courts something white supremacy?
I didn’t see it happen because stupid work interfered but the idiots on ESPN were frantically making excuses for her. The grass was too new, the grass was too wet, yada yada yada. It’s nauseating the way they go on about the prom kings and queens like her and Federer and treat most everyone else like dogshit.
The grass was too new, the grass was too wet, yada yada yada.
And yet somehow her opponent managed to tread on the same grass without falling on her arse.
Where’s Peng Shuai when we need her?
(Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the video of Shuzo Matsuoka’s full-body cramping that changed the injury timeout rules in the first place.)
Ugh. I just came in from outside and feel like I have a heat stroke myself.