#189 Guests of the Nation- Frank O’Connor

#189 Guests of the Nation- Frank O’Connor

The English and the Irish are in constant conflict. A group of young Irishmen are involved and have two British men as captives, sort of. Neither of them really know they are truly captive, nor does half the group that is holding them. They have nightly card games over tea and argue religion and politics.

“The capitalists pay the priests to tell you about the next world so that you won’t notice what the bastards are up to in this.”

It seems that none of them have a full grip on the situation, or the conflict in general other than that-side-did-this-so-we-must-do-this, etc. Yet somehow they are resigned to this violent reality and whether they believe or not in what each one’s side is about, they understand duty and a skewed sense of honor.

Maybe I’m projecting my own sensibilities onto this, but O’Connor does a good job representing the meaninglessness of this sort of regional hatred and Capulet/Montague or Hatfield/McCoys type of absurd feud.

Rating:7-7-8-8 Total= 30

#110 Mary Postgate- Rudyard Kipling

#110 Mary Postgate- Rudyard Kipling

England during WWII. The Fowler household is Mrs. Fowler, her son Wynn, and their house maid Mary Postgate. Wynn is training to be a fighter pilot but dies before seeing action. One day a young girl is shot and killed during a German bombing raid. That’s the story.

It’s a very proper English setting telling a very proper English story in a very proper English manner. The characters to my ears seem cold and unsentimental. Her son dies and the Mother doesn’t cry: “It can’t be natural not to cry…I’m so afraid you’ll have a reaction.” But she doesn’t, she just makes sure that Mary systematically takes care of all Wynn’s belongings, mostly burning them. They wonder why he kept old letters from them.

And Mary is a prototypical image of a dutiful English servant:

“Mary was not young, and though her speech was as colorless as her eyes or her hair, she was never shocked.”

Noticing Mary for the first time is 11 years of service as an individual person, Mrs. Fowler asks: “Mary, aren’t you anything except a companion? Would you ever have been anything except a companion?”

To which Mary coolly replies: “No…I don’t imagine I ever should. But I’ve no imagination, I’m afraid.” Fun times!

After witnessing a child die bleeding in the street, her reaction: “One mustn’t let ones mind dwell on these things.”

I can recognize a good story and a talented hand when I read it, but that doesn’t mean I will always enjoy them. There is just something about these old English stories about the lives of high society and their servants that misses me completely. I know I’m showing my ignorance, but this is my blog and I want to be honest.

Rating: 8-7-7-6 Total= 28

#66 Marching Songs- Keith Ridgway

#66 Marching Songs- Keith Ridgway

This man is sick, or at least thinks he is. He thinks he is dying but nobody will believe him. He blames the doctors, the indifference of people, society, the army and of course former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

“Mr. Blair is not the owner of his own evil. He is the host of it…His skin is a manila envelope. It contains an argument, not a heart.”

The man is sick. His mental illness is obvious, he fixates on the things around him and injects his paranoia into everyday things. He once shook the hand of Tony Blair and is convinced he was injected during that handshake with a tiny needle filled with nano-technology. He might be a veteran himself, although I’m not sure. During his brief interaction with Blair, they talked about formula one racing, so now he watches every racing crash video he can find on the internet.

This is a very good representation of a fragile human mind: “Beneath the fault there is solid ground. Beneath the ice. Under all the cracks. Under all the cracks there is something that is not broken.”

Ridgway does a great job of creating a loose frenetic mood in the narration. He has a fun, free way with phrasing that made me go back to re-read several sections to remember what I found I clever.

Notable Passages: “When nothing is happening we want something to happen, and when something is happening we want it to stop.”

“Policemen are standard procedures. There is nothing to them that cannot be confused.”

Rating: 8-8-10-9 Total= 35

#63 The Signal Man- Charles Dickens

#63 The Signal Man- Charles Dickens

Sorry for the brief hiatus, i was away for the weekend. I'll catch up over the next few days.

A haunted track worker tells the tale of a ghost appearing near his signal light:

“…the left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved. Violently waved.”

“Halloa! Below there!” Each time the aberration shows itself, horrible deadly events take place.

Like many of Dicken’s works, this one uses real-world references.  The first warning to the signalman occurred as the Clayton Tunnel disaster of 1861 (tunnel seen below).

The narrator although sympathetic to the fear in the signalman’s eyes, believes his mind is playing tricks. He agrees to take him to a doctor the next day, but its too late, the ghost had already appeared and forewarned of the man’s own demise.  At the start, the signal man mistook the image of the narrator as another appearance of the ghost, perhaps he was right.

This is very much a Dickens story.

Notable Passage: “men of common sense did not allow for coincidences in making the ordinary calculations of life.”

Rating: 8-7-8-7 Total= 30