Well, we near the end! Two more classes. As we approach our discussion of the final section of Eureka Street, it's probably important that that we think back to that passage from the Heaney Nobel speech when he describes the Protestant on that imperiled bus reaching out to squeeze the hand of his Catholic co-worker. After the terrible waste and loss of life -- the "harrowing of the heart," as Heaney refers to it -- what alternatives (what "Eureka!" moments) have we been shown and given in the literature we've read, the music we've listened to, the films we've watched? "I will sing, sing a new song," right? How, for example, does the act of acceptance asked of us by The Crying Game relate to the possibilities for peace in Northern Ireland? How does McLiam Wilson's "OTG" relate to those same possibilities? Certainly this was (and it's such a wonderful thing that I can get away with using the past tense there) a conflict that reminds us of the value of culture and of artists. There was always a kind of political danger inherent in championing the message of peace and alternative cultural spaces (think back to U2 responding to the Enniskillen bombing, to Stiff Little Fingers using punk music to break sectarian barriers and bring people together, to Rory Gallagher's sweet guitar on that evening in Belfast as bombs fell in other parts of the city, to Jake Jackson's turning of the radio dial in Eureka Street, etc.), but the artists have so often pushed bravely forward.
We do, by the way, definitely want to think about "OTG" in Eureka Street. What does it mean, ultimately? Why does it make sense that McLiam Wilson at one point actually considered "OTG" as a possible title for his novel? As you think about this, you might be interested to check out the work of the legendary London-based graffiti artist, Banksy; I particularly like these two images -- one, two -- both because they are visually striking and because they seem to be ideologically aligned with what McLiam Wilson's OTG might stand for in some way. And then there's this last one, which is also quite arresting.
See you all tomorrow. Do consider sharing your final paper ideas here, as well, by the way -- you might even be able to get some comments and feedback from your colleagues in the class ...
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Peacing Together Northern Ireland
Thinking ahead to our final class meeting in a few weeks, here is a link (accessible via the always useful CAIN site) to the text of the Belfast Agreement (also commonly referred to as the Good Friday Agreement). Over 94% voted in favor of the Agreement in the Republic of Ireland, while over 71% voted in favor of it in Northern Ireland (though only 55% of Northern Ireland's unionists voted for it).
Some nine years later, in May 2007, when the historic power-sharing government finally got underway, the Irish writer Colum McCann published a moving editorial in the New York Times. Here's an excerpt:
The victories of peace aren’t as immediate as those of war. It is difficult to imagine the members of the Assembly’s opposing parties shaking hands and agreeing on the colors of the flowers for the Easter parade. It will be a long, rocky road. Parts of the North are still separated by 50-foot-high “peace” walls. More than 90 percent of public housing is segregated, and research has shown that even 3-year-olds still display sectarian instincts. But in the aftermath of so many decades of violence, children are out in East Belfast scrubbing the walls free of political graffiti. Fierce enemies are shaking hands. Prisons, like the infamous H-Block, have been torn down.
There is no greater moment in war than the end of it. The vague dream of getting older, for politicians and terrorists and even children, is that we can somehow still become better people. As much as anything, the move toward devolution is a glimmer of hope for the rest of the world — if it can happen in Northern Ireland, it’s possible that it can happen anywhere. Palestine. Sri Lanka. Iraq.
One of the reasons that center holds is that no one politician, or party, or popular figure is trying to own the peace. It is an international agreement that owes as much to the vision of political leaders as it does to the thousands of mothers and fathers who have brokered it from the inside.
The questions of this generation of children are yet to be shaped. With luck and vision, the “Why?” will be said with a bewildered look backward rather than with a horrified glance about.
For a nation that has shouldered so much for so long, the possibility of no more needless small white coffins is almost answer enough.
Some nine years later, in May 2007, when the historic power-sharing government finally got underway, the Irish writer Colum McCann published a moving editorial in the New York Times. Here's an excerpt:
The victories of peace aren’t as immediate as those of war. It is difficult to imagine the members of the Assembly’s opposing parties shaking hands and agreeing on the colors of the flowers for the Easter parade. It will be a long, rocky road. Parts of the North are still separated by 50-foot-high “peace” walls. More than 90 percent of public housing is segregated, and research has shown that even 3-year-olds still display sectarian instincts. But in the aftermath of so many decades of violence, children are out in East Belfast scrubbing the walls free of political graffiti. Fierce enemies are shaking hands. Prisons, like the infamous H-Block, have been torn down.
There is no greater moment in war than the end of it. The vague dream of getting older, for politicians and terrorists and even children, is that we can somehow still become better people. As much as anything, the move toward devolution is a glimmer of hope for the rest of the world — if it can happen in Northern Ireland, it’s possible that it can happen anywhere. Palestine. Sri Lanka. Iraq.
One of the reasons that center holds is that no one politician, or party, or popular figure is trying to own the peace. It is an international agreement that owes as much to the vision of political leaders as it does to the thousands of mothers and fathers who have brokered it from the inside.
The questions of this generation of children are yet to be shaped. With luck and vision, the “Why?” will be said with a bewildered look backward rather than with a horrified glance about.
For a nation that has shouldered so much for so long, the possibility of no more needless small white coffins is almost answer enough.
Lost Lives, Remembered Stories
We'll begin Monday's class with U2's performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" at Slane Castle on September 1, 2001. The date is significant in many ways: Bono pleads with the audience, "three years after Omagh," to "turn this song into a prayer." The proximity to a national tragedy just ten days later in our own country adds another emotional charge. And then there's the fact that Bono's father had died the week before. It's a super-charged moment, and it makes his reading of the names of the victims of the Omagh bombing that much more poignant and haunting.
On the heels of the Fountain Street bombing in Eureka Street, where McLiam Wilson offers a similar emphasis on naming, narrativizing, and humanizing the victims (finding a new, more humane language and means of representation for violence may be a prerequisite for developing a language for peace), I do want again to recommend the book Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of Northern Ireland's Troubles (2001, editors David McKittrick, Sean Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton, David McVea). From the new-born baby to the IRA recruit to the RUC officer to the abducted father, every victim of the Troubles has his or her story told in this 1600+ page book. One thinks, too, of the "Portraits of Grief" series that ran in the New York Times after 9/11.
Here is how the editors of Lost Lives describe what you'll experience: "We have set out the tales of those who died in a manner in which is as unemotional and objective as we could devise. Yet the facts, even when presented as dispassionately as possible, have great intrinsic power. The words we have written may read like journalism, but readers will quickly become aware that between the lines lie much grief and tragedy. We hope readers will be affected, as we have been, by the powerful message they convey of what violence can do to individuals, and families and communities.... Within these covers are more than 3,600 lost lives, testimony to what happens to a community which sets out to resolve differences through violence."
By the way, I also still hope that we might have an opportunity to look at Seamus Heaney's great poem, "Casualty." Please keep at the ready!
As for Eureka Street, onward. Although the narration begins Chapter 12 with the line "but Fountain Street is an incidental detail" (232), we think differently. The horror recedes, but if we've been reading with the proper empathy than we know that this episode must never be incidental, must never be allowed to become merely a date in a chronology, or to be described with a phrase like "collateral damage." We resolve to remember those names: Rosemary Daye, Martin O'Hare, Kevin McCafferty, Natalie, Liz, and Margaret Crawford, John Mullen, Angie Best, William Patterson, et al. "The pages that follow are light with their loss" (231). Indeed.
On the heels of the Fountain Street bombing in Eureka Street, where McLiam Wilson offers a similar emphasis on naming, narrativizing, and humanizing the victims (finding a new, more humane language and means of representation for violence may be a prerequisite for developing a language for peace), I do want again to recommend the book Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of Northern Ireland's Troubles (2001, editors David McKittrick, Sean Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton, David McVea). From the new-born baby to the IRA recruit to the RUC officer to the abducted father, every victim of the Troubles has his or her story told in this 1600+ page book. One thinks, too, of the "Portraits of Grief" series that ran in the New York Times after 9/11.
Here is how the editors of Lost Lives describe what you'll experience: "We have set out the tales of those who died in a manner in which is as unemotional and objective as we could devise. Yet the facts, even when presented as dispassionately as possible, have great intrinsic power. The words we have written may read like journalism, but readers will quickly become aware that between the lines lie much grief and tragedy. We hope readers will be affected, as we have been, by the powerful message they convey of what violence can do to individuals, and families and communities.... Within these covers are more than 3,600 lost lives, testimony to what happens to a community which sets out to resolve differences through violence."
By the way, I also still hope that we might have an opportunity to look at Seamus Heaney's great poem, "Casualty." Please keep at the ready!
As for Eureka Street, onward. Although the narration begins Chapter 12 with the line "but Fountain Street is an incidental detail" (232), we think differently. The horror recedes, but if we've been reading with the proper empathy than we know that this episode must never be incidental, must never be allowed to become merely a date in a chronology, or to be described with a phrase like "collateral damage." We resolve to remember those names: Rosemary Daye, Martin O'Hare, Kevin McCafferty, Natalie, Liz, and Margaret Crawford, John Mullen, Angie Best, William Patterson, et al. "The pages that follow are light with their loss" (231). Indeed.
"They are epic, these citizens"
Greetings, all. I've been wanting to follow on the heels of Andy's excellent posting about Eureka Street to provide some more odds & ends, and perhaps some comments to push us forward towards the last section of the novel. First of all, some basics about Robert McLiam Wilson that you might find useful: Born in 1964. A Belfast writer. A Catholic (as a Catholic growing up in West Belfast, he might have been expected to have developed IRA sympathies). "Like that of most citizens of Belfast," he has written, "my identity is the subject of some local dispute. Some say I'm British, some say I'm Irish, some even say that there's no way I'm five foot eleven and that I'm five ten at best. In many ways I'm not permitted to contribute to this debate. If the controversy is ever satisfactorily concluded, I will be whatever the majority of people tell me I am. As a quotidian absolute, nationality is almost meaningless. For an Italian living in Italy, Italianness is not much of a distinction. What really gives nationality its chiaroscuro, its flavor, is a little dash of hatred and fear. Nobody really knows or cares what they are until they meet what they don't want to be. Then it's time for the flags and guns to come out."
Eureka Street (1996) is his third novel, following the highly regarded and prize-winning Ripley Bogle (1989) and Manfred's Pain (1992). You've gathered by now that he's a striking urban writer and, indeed, Eureka Street may remind us of other great urban writers like Dickens and, more appropriately, Joyce. As I've invited you to consider any number of times now, it's useful to think about how his Belfast is mapped: is it mapped according to the confining logic and segregated spatialities of the Troubles (no-go areas, Catholics here, Protestants there)? Or is there a different logic at work? When and where do we see a possibly transgressive logic and spatiality evidenced?
We've also noted the predominance of the thriller in Troubles literature. They very often, of course, have quite grossly simplified the nature of the conflict; if one didn't know better, they would cause one to think that Northern Ireland has been utterly consumed by war (a war fought by two crazed, tribal groups, fighting to the death). One thing McLiam Wilson sets out to do in this novel is to represent the ordinary citizen, the citizen who is more concerned with the mundane realities of day-to-day life. In fact, McLIam Wilson once said that "an awful lot of people in Northern Ireland simply don't care whether it is Irish, British or independent. Yet no one speaks for them and no one reflects their views or even demonstrates the fact that they exist."
The other big part of the historical context for this novel is the fact that the peace process had started to gain a kind of tenuous momentum by 1993. It was a time of ceasefires, broken ceasefires, fits and starts, persistent but cautious optimism ... It's this new spirit of hopefulness that may be causing the classic Troubles thriller to mutate into something noticeably different in Eureka Street. With this in mind, we've tried to characterize the tone and the genre identity of this novel, as well as its attitude towards the contemporary conflict and its politics. As we look ahead to our last discussion day for the novel in our penultimate class meeting, we'll want to talk about how we characterize this novel's vision of the future: on what will a lasting peace depend, according to the logic of the novel? What does Peggy & Caroline's story have to contribute to this question? What is this text's "Eureka!" cry? What does OTG represent, ultimately?
Eureka Street (1996) is his third novel, following the highly regarded and prize-winning Ripley Bogle (1989) and Manfred's Pain (1992). You've gathered by now that he's a striking urban writer and, indeed, Eureka Street may remind us of other great urban writers like Dickens and, more appropriately, Joyce. As I've invited you to consider any number of times now, it's useful to think about how his Belfast is mapped: is it mapped according to the confining logic and segregated spatialities of the Troubles (no-go areas, Catholics here, Protestants there)? Or is there a different logic at work? When and where do we see a possibly transgressive logic and spatiality evidenced?
We've also noted the predominance of the thriller in Troubles literature. They very often, of course, have quite grossly simplified the nature of the conflict; if one didn't know better, they would cause one to think that Northern Ireland has been utterly consumed by war (a war fought by two crazed, tribal groups, fighting to the death). One thing McLiam Wilson sets out to do in this novel is to represent the ordinary citizen, the citizen who is more concerned with the mundane realities of day-to-day life. In fact, McLIam Wilson once said that "an awful lot of people in Northern Ireland simply don't care whether it is Irish, British or independent. Yet no one speaks for them and no one reflects their views or even demonstrates the fact that they exist."
The other big part of the historical context for this novel is the fact that the peace process had started to gain a kind of tenuous momentum by 1993. It was a time of ceasefires, broken ceasefires, fits and starts, persistent but cautious optimism ... It's this new spirit of hopefulness that may be causing the classic Troubles thriller to mutate into something noticeably different in Eureka Street. With this in mind, we've tried to characterize the tone and the genre identity of this novel, as well as its attitude towards the contemporary conflict and its politics. As we look ahead to our last discussion day for the novel in our penultimate class meeting, we'll want to talk about how we characterize this novel's vision of the future: on what will a lasting peace depend, according to the logic of the novel? What does Peggy & Caroline's story have to contribute to this question? What is this text's "Eureka!" cry? What does OTG represent, ultimately?
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Eureka Street
I'm reluctant to have definite opinions about the novel, as I'm only half-way through it, but at this point I really enjoy it, and just wanted to counter our class discussion by saying I find it to be exquisitely written, and enthralling on every page. Yes, it's funny quite often, but the humor is, to me, a backdrop to the reality in the foreground. At times it's quiet, but it's also like the muted din of a mid-day bar where one is having lunch alone, with a book--you can overhear the jokes and banter, but the grave nature of the social condition permeates all distractions. One difference with this novel, as compared with previous readings from this course, is that it's the first one that I feel generationally a part of, that I can relate to in ways the other books-- no matter how poignant and well-executed-- are not able to bridge the gaps of time, proximity, and sheer volume of history unfolding on a regular and exponential basis. What some readers may take as flippancy or even pandering to a juvenile masculinity, I embrace as a a wonderfully refreshing and, more importantly, new literary style, in a dauntless voice that doesn't hesitate to exist without the physical and emotional boundaries that seem to define Irishness in the dramatic landscape of the twentieth century. This is exemplified in the resistance to singleness of form and purpose, which allows the reader to detach from expected agenda. It is gloriously post-modern in this way, and does very well in constructing a mind-space out of the confetti of perceived experience. I personally love any and all digressions in engaging writing when they can't help but be related best in the broad category of poetry. Even the most every-day, prosaic and technical writing, if impacting and memorable, embodies the vague multiplicity of artistic astonishment and inspiration.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Queen's Gambit
This poem has stuck with me more than the others, even though I very much like almost everything in Belfast Confetti. Queen's Gambit implies sacrifice, and the time-wise pace of a game of chess could serve as the metronome for the rhythm of this poem, vacillating between three and four-line stanzas, with short fold-over lines, it reads like a telegram or typewriter with carriage return lever. Tight, musical beat, interesting changes and jazziness, simple description is used efficiently to indelibly present vividness in a floating image heap that's still tethered to solid ground somewhere below. In this phantasmagory, social commentary manages to be proclaimed without putting off, and the language is flourished with the whole spectrum of sounds-- many times within the same line. Subtle comparisons of the soldier as robot, a near obsession with numerological influence or consequence, and the restraint of pauses where the stanza breaks all seem to convey the frustration of living with terrorism-- long periods of boredom and anxiety peppered with sudden horror and tragedy. Carson does well here with giving the reader a sense of action, like with the ink rubbing off and the paper "with so many foldings and unfoldings, whole segments of the / map have fallen off." A sharp, scissor-like cadence of hard-ending words tick-tocks its way around, "the blank screen / jittering / With numerals and flak, till the picture jumps back--a bit out / of sync." The buzzing bees and mounting energy by line 82 takes on an uptempo spirit, and you want to dance a jig. The ending's implied death, and rebirth with love, wraps up a newsworthy and emotionally restored game of chess. The slithering assistant, for one, helps this poem live in a surreal organizational pool of adventure and risk.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Interpretive Calisthenics
OK, groan away -- so I can't resist a bad pun once in awhile in my titles! It gets worse when you survey the other options I was considering: Northern Ireland's Calorific Politics; Calumny and Sectarianism; In the Cal-Zone; A Cal to Arms (actually, a serious title invoking Hemingway -- A Farewell to Arms -- would actually be relevant to this novel, and would also pick up on the sentiments in Sam's recent post and rhyme with U2's refrain "I will sing a new song" from their song "40"). Anyway, maybe you'll have your own bad puns to add to the list!
To more serious matters: we have a lot still to talk about in regards to MaLaverty's novel, so the pressure will be on to traverse a diverse assortment of passages on Monday. To that end, maybe some of you would care to deposit an observation or two in these parts to get us started, and to help me think about what we need to cover on Monday. It goes without saying, of course, that we'll need to deal with the novel's concluding scenes, but what else? Speaking (above) of "singing a new song," it's interesting that Cal, although remembering (during that church service) how his mother used to sing rebel songs, finds that such songs don't speak to him the way American rhythm & blues do (links to The Commitments, too, probably). As I invoke mothers, I remember that one of the last phrases I wrote on the board last Wednesday was "absent mothers," a detail in Cal that connects this novel with The Heather Blazing (and that connects Cal with Eamon), and perhaps even with Amongst Women: it's very poignant when Cal remembers his mom (see p. 78, for example), and it both reminds us of the masculinist nature of the Troubles and the kind of incomplete vision of society that was featured in Toibin's women-less vision of Irish society (and the Irish body politic). The absence of women figures deeply in the psyche of some of our individual characters, and also has implications for the national psyche. I would also imagine we'll want to think/talk about the cottage that Cal ends up using as a refuge on the Morton farm: and perhaps that suggests linkages with one or more of our previous (con)texts. And so much more, surely. Hopefully, too, ILL will manage to get a copy of the film version to me by Monday so that I can show you a scene or two. Until then: happy weekending!
To more serious matters: we have a lot still to talk about in regards to MaLaverty's novel, so the pressure will be on to traverse a diverse assortment of passages on Monday. To that end, maybe some of you would care to deposit an observation or two in these parts to get us started, and to help me think about what we need to cover on Monday. It goes without saying, of course, that we'll need to deal with the novel's concluding scenes, but what else? Speaking (above) of "singing a new song," it's interesting that Cal, although remembering (during that church service) how his mother used to sing rebel songs, finds that such songs don't speak to him the way American rhythm & blues do (links to The Commitments, too, probably). As I invoke mothers, I remember that one of the last phrases I wrote on the board last Wednesday was "absent mothers," a detail in Cal that connects this novel with The Heather Blazing (and that connects Cal with Eamon), and perhaps even with Amongst Women: it's very poignant when Cal remembers his mom (see p. 78, for example), and it both reminds us of the masculinist nature of the Troubles and the kind of incomplete vision of society that was featured in Toibin's women-less vision of Irish society (and the Irish body politic). The absence of women figures deeply in the psyche of some of our individual characters, and also has implications for the national psyche. I would also imagine we'll want to think/talk about the cottage that Cal ends up using as a refuge on the Morton farm: and perhaps that suggests linkages with one or more of our previous (con)texts. And so much more, surely. Hopefully, too, ILL will manage to get a copy of the film version to me by Monday so that I can show you a scene or two. Until then: happy weekending!
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