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!