Steeped in Irishness

Press, 12 May 1984, Page 20

Steeped in Irishness

The Barracks. By John McGahern. Faber, 1983. 232 pp. $9.95. The Dark. By John McGahern. Faber, 1983. 191 pp. $9.95.

(Reviewed by

Ngaire Orlowski)

John McGahern would consider it an insult to be called an “Irish” writer, saying it is more important “to belong to the human kind first,” but his writing is steeped in Irishness: the idiom is unmistakeable, Irish Catholicism permeates his characters’ lives and personalities, and the religious are observed with an objective and sharp eye. These novels, first published in 1963 (“The Barracks”) and 1966, draw on his personal experiences — his upbringing in a small-town Garda (police) barracks, winning a scholarship and going to Dublin, his mother’s death from cancer. “The Barracks” is about love and death. Reegan, a policeman, has already lost one wife to cancer. His second discovers lumps in her breast. Elizabeth has married late in life and taken on Reegan’s three children largely to escape from her mother and brother. As she faces death she thinks

of her past life as a nurse in London and struggles for a closer relationship with her husband. Reegan finds his job is killing him, figuratively speaking. The reader is left with the impression that he will escape from his job, but the cycle will be repeated. “The Dark,” again, is concerned with the search for love and understanding. Young Mahoney grows up in a small town and struggles with the problems of adolescence while trying to clarify his relationship with his widowed father, who is by turns violent, selfpitying, critical, and proud of his scholarship-winning son. John McGahern recaptures vividly the adolescent’s embarrassment with his father and eventual (if only partial) understanding of him, as well as describing frankly the problems of adolescent sexuality. The author’s lifelong fascination with the rhythm and colour of words has furnished him with a lucid and eminently readable style. Lovers of the Irish, and the Irish themselves, will appreciate these novels of living, dying and dreaming in a small-town Irish setting.