Comments on: WinterWood, by Patrick McCabe

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:50:34 +0000

You two are getting me interested in this book — too few authors attempt this kind of theme and I do have a weakness for Australian fiction. Please keep me posted.

By: John Self

John Self — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:07:05 +0000

Synchronicity indeed, Mary. I just before Christmas received a copy of Seven Types of Ambiguity from an Australian journalist who liked it and thought I might like it too. And it had, earlier last year, also been recommended to me by a friend. So I think the time must be drawing near for me to pick it up from the shelves – all 600+ pages of it.

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:11:25 +0000

Max: I have not read The Butcher Boy, so I can’t really comment on whether McCabe has improved — my impression for reading other reviews is that he has. I do find that his novels are reader friendly, despite some of the quirky phrasing. Characterization is not really his strong point but there is enough plot and reportage (quite good reportage, actually) to move the novel along.

By: Max Cairnduff

Max Cairnduff — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:14:20 +0000

I’ve read The Butcher Boy, which I enjoyed but wasn’t impassioned about enough to seek out more. That said, it was his first novel, and from your review and John’s comments it sounds like he improved from there (not that The Butcher Boy was bad, it was well written, it just didn’t speak to me ultimately).

Lurid and quirky are both good words for The Butcher Boy, certainly.

I may look back into him, either this or The Holy City I suspect would be good places to start. Ronak, from the sound of it I wouldn’t start with The Butcher Boy, it sounds like he’s definitely done better since.

By: Mary

Mary — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:30:06 +0000

Thanks Kevin. Log fire burning and pipes and hot water OK so far. I’m reading an Australian novel called `Seven Types of Ambiguity’ ( bit of a cheeky title) by Elliot Perlman which I found in a bookshop in Brest and which I’d never heard of. Written pre-crash in 2003 and about Australian society in Melbourne, it’s a critique of modern capitalism. A big chunky novel – just right for the weather and I’m enjoying the enforced `house arrest’.

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:54:33 +0000

Mary: Thanks for the heads upon the other Madden books. Molly Fox did have some of that aspect in it, although not much — I could certainly see where Madden might have paid more attention to it in others. I’ll look out for the titles you recommend because I did like the one novel that I have read.

Our blizzards might be worse but they have far less effect on living, since we expect them. I just hope your pipes aren’t frozen and the heating is working so that you can settle in and wait out the weather with a good book.

By: Mary

Mary — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:57:07 +0000

It seems appropriate to read your review of WinterWood as we are currently snowed in here in Northern Brittany ( though like the Irish mountains , I’m sure our blizzard would be puny by Canadian standards!). I’m not averse to quirky narrators – Tristam Shandy or Ebenezer le Page – although I agree that perhaps one would wish for a significant lapse between them. I’ve heard good things of McCabe’s books and this one sounds worth following up. I was interested by your comment that he takes the tradition of Irish fiction and moves it into a modern age. Two years ago through the recommendation of an Irish friend I discovered Deirdre Madden whose Molly Fox’s Birthday you reviewed recently. However I think two earlier books of hers – One by One in the Darkness and Authenticity set in Northern Ireland and Dublin respectively lie very much in that tradition of an Irish voice in a modern age and that voice being a feminine one besides.

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:16:19 +0000

John: Thanks for exensive comment and overview of McCabe's work -- you know it much better than I do. I do have Breakfast on Pluto on hand and will bet to The Butcher Boy and The Dead School eventually, because I do think he is an author who deserves to be read. On the other hand, "quirky" is a very apt adjective for him -- you need to be in the right mood to appreciate his work and I wouldn't want to read one novel right after the other. What interests me most about him is that I feel he is trying to take the tradition of "Irish" fiction and move it into the modern age. With the two books that I have read, I think he has been successful. Ronak: I would pay more attention to John's thoughts than mine, but I would say start with WinterWood. It isn't a long read and certainly does keep the action moving. I would not compare McCabe with Coetzee, despite some similarities. Coetzee has more depth to him and is perhaps best at exploring some of the repressive sides of a colonial society. McCabe's society is in some ways equally repressed, but his exploration of it has a much more "quirky" tone than Coetzee does.

By: Ronak M Soni

Ronak M Soni — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:50:32 +0000

Sounds really interesting. Have you read Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country or Dusklands? They too had this same reality/unreality play, and I loved them.
Which book would you recommend I start McCabe with? (Not that I’m going to start soon, I have a ten book backlog right now, but maybe next time I go to a bookstore with money in the bank.)

By: John Self

John Self — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:46:30 +0000

I think I am one of those who said it is his best book. I think I said that because it his most distinctive book, ie the only one (I've read) where he doesn't adopt a self-consciously 'quirky' voice designed to madden the reader as much as delight them. In that sense, Chris McCool in The Holy City was a return to (old) form. The apotheosis of this 'voice' is probably Pussy Braden in Breakfast on Pluto, which was shortlisted for the Booker. All these books are successful in their own way, and in none of them can I find anything to criticise in his (daring enough) use of chirpy narrative to reveal hideous content. It's just that when viewed as a body of work, they begin to blur somewhat. For what it's worth, his first two novels in that distinctive McCabe style (and his first two major works - the previous two novels are forgotten) are The Butcher Boy and The Dead School. I would rate the latter as the best of his 'voice' books. He also wrote a couple of less well-regarded novels after Breakfast on Pluto but before Winterwood: Emerald Germs of Ireland (though this may be more of a story collection) and Call Me the Breeze. I haven't heard much good said about either of them, but no doubt they are worth reading if you do develop a taste for his more lurid stuff.