celticman's blog

Edna O’Brien’s The Light of Evening follows a familiar mother-daughter path. Dilly is dying in a Dublin hospital. Her daughter, Elenaora, has inherited her beautiful hair, which features in every novel. A writer whose debut novel scandalized her Irish neighbours, and an ultra-Catholic nation because it showed women’s desire from the inside. She has fled to London and married an older man (who already had a wife and child). Her dad is a brute...

I watched the film and now I’ve read the book. With few exceptions such as Ben Hur , books are better. David Chariandy’s slim novel won a slew of awards. And rightly so. It’s beautifully written. You’d imagine the screen adaptation to be pretty simple. Opening page. Michael and Francis. Opening scene. Michael and Francis. ‘Once he showed me his place in the sky. The hydro pole in the parking lot all weed-broke and abandoned. Looking up you’d see...

I used to read Séamas O’Reilly’s whimsical weekly column in The Observer . I didn’t know much about him, other than he was Irish. His 2021 memoir, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? won biography of the year in the Irish book awards. He makes light work of his mum dying when he was five. It’s in the title. His incomprehension about why so many people were pouring into his house to see his mum and dad. Mum died from breast cancer when she was forty-three...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZw0bW4Pvzw Pamela Doherty had a baby when she was sixteen. The kind of mother Prime Minister David Cameron warned us about. The kind of mother that was fodder for The Jeremy Kyle Show and for the Tory boo-boys. Ironically, this was the kind of crap loved by the working class as just a bit of harmless fun. Most of us remember Paige Doherty going missing, because she was one of us. We know the shop she was killed...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Chairs What if? You can fill that question in various ways and answer in different art forms. The Little Red Chairs in the title of Edna O’Brien’s novel are symbolic of a wider evil—that of genocide and those involved. It refers to a commemorative art installation in Sarajevo: 11,541 red chairs placed in the street—one for each person killed during the 1,425 day siege, including 643 smaller chairs for...

John Willis had too much material to include in a book of just under 500 pages. The book and BBC oral history project from early in the present century which draws on 47,000 testimonies from ordinary civilians and service personnel. Most go unnamed. Those that are named, represent multitudes. I was particularly interested in Palestine, Monte Cassino and the Gothic Line 1944 because this is where my father fought. It was a particularly bloody...

Someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer every 15 seconds. Some readers will be reading with that in mind. Others to find out more about life and death (which isn’t optional). Deborah James died on 28 June 2022, and her death had a major, immediate impact on the sales of How to Live When You Could Be Dead . It debuted at number one and became the bestselling non-fiction debut of 2022. It had me thinking of the classic BBC series: Why Don't You...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Betrayal_(Dunmore_novel) Leningrad 1952/53. Stalin has god-like powers. His paranoia has shaped a super-power in which the greater good is defined by the fear of that knock at the door. No one is safe. Volkov is a fictional character. He has the appellation THE attached to his name in whispers. THE Volkov. To show there’s no misunderstanding. It’s really him. With the fear and state-sponsored terror he brings...

Maya Angelou’s front-cover endorsement of Women Who Run With the Wolves is one of the most famous blurbs in publishing history. ‘Everyone who can read should read this book.’ I can read and I read the book. Around 2.7 million copies sold. But one of those best-selling books I’d never heard of. I’m not sure why. Probably because I’m a guy. ‘Stories are medicine.’ Strong medicine. Healing medicine. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is a cantadora (a keeper...

Andrew G.Ralston is hooking a ride on one of Scottish television’s most successful cop shows: Taggart . There’s a big kick and lick of the McIlvanney and Laidlaw on which Taggart is based, the idea of the outsider and insider that contacts investigations in his own way—and comes up trumps every time. Everyone in Glasgow was an extra in Taggart. I got paid for it, so I saw lead actor Mick McManus in action, but I was more interested in the free...