Langrishe, Go Down (Dalkey Archive Essentials)

A new(2016) edition with the bonus of an insightful afterword from John Banville.The blurb tells you all you need to know as far as plot - "the youngest of the four sisters embarks on a reckless love affair, set against the backdrop of a crumbling 1930's Europe" - and there are no surprises along the way. The predictability, though, doesn't matter, I didn't read this to find out what happened next. Higgins constructs, or recreates, his atmospheric world and that is enough.'Evening.Steam on the surface by the far bank. Cattle come to drink. House-flies. Dragon-flies. Carried down. Winding river. Its bends. Overhanging foliage. Ash. Elm. Beech. Ash. A cat on the river wall. Black cat. Washing itself. Complacent. River wall. Endless river. Tireless river.Bats fly at night. Meadows full of white daisies and buttercups. Swallows darting over the hedge. The currant bushes in Springfield garden. Dry fumes of their musty branches. Otto favours blackcurrant jam.'Banville tells us that Beckett declared it to be 'literary s***' but also told Higgins that 'in you, together with the beginner, is the old hand'.'Ending, ending.-That monotonous condition of the soul, Otto said, halfway between fulfilment and futility, which comes with living in the country.Futility, futility.- Among bats, Otto said, which have connection in the autumn, the sperms can remain dormant in the uterus throughout the whole of winter and impregnate the ova in the spring.Ended.Two springs, two summers, three autumns and two winters.That was all; and now all over'

doom and gloom in style.This is a very sad story, but he telling is marvellous. Short staccato sentences, disregard for continuity, and a mixture of Gaeltacht andatmospheric, classic English. You must be charmed, unless you refuse the whole beverage. Gallons are drunk, plenty of tears are shed,lies are shamelessly told and sometimes believed. Gentlewomen in distress are not a new subject, but Aidan Higgins is not interested intradition, except to rummage in forgotten drawers full of trinkets. The man is afraid of nothing, and can "do" burials and visits to graveslike no other, the life of humble persons and devotion of same to past lore, cows and heifers wandering along , the drenched fields of Ireland.All this material, so well trod in past and present Irish literature, is reworked in a high modernist garb, All things are the same, made newby a very personal attitude.

If I hadn't seen the movie first with Judi Dench I never would have gotten through it. DULL.

This might be a great book for those who adore Irish literature and it may have qualities I didn't appreciate, however, I found it really dreary and fairly pointless.

I havent finished the book yet but the purchase process went well. arrived within a week, fair price & in condition described