NYRB Classics discussion

Our November book is by J.G. Farrell
Introduction by John Banville.


Winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize

1919: After surviving the Great War, Major Brendan Archer makes his way to Ireland, hoping to discover whether he is indeed betrothed to Angela Spencer, whose Anglo-Irish family owns the once-aptly-named Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough. But his fiancée is strangely altered and her family's fortunes have suffered a spectacular decline. The hotel's hundreds of rooms are disintegrating on a grand scale; its few remaining guests thrive on rumors and games of whist; herds of cats have taken over the Imperial Bar and the upper stories; bamboo shoots threaten the foundations; and piglets frolic in the squash court. Meanwhile, the Major is captivated by the beautiful and bitter Sarah Devlin. As housekeeping disasters force him from room to room, outside the order of the British Empire also totters: there is unrest in the East, and in Ireland itself the mounting violence of "the troubles."

Troubles is a hilarious and heartbreaking work by a modern master of the historical novel.
459 pages

Reviews: https://www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/mo...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...

https://mookseandgripes.com/reviews/2...

Reading/lecture with Lavinia Greacen. J.G. Farrell biographer, and Rosie Farrell, J.G. Farrell's niece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0go5...

I’ve read about 80 pages. I find it goes down really easy, and effortlessly wants to make me keep reading, despite not much having happened.

I actually got the Everyman library version of this, so I’m also just really enjoying the book-as-object element here.

Emily wrote: "I’ve read about 80 pages. I find it goes down really easy, and effortlessly wants to make me keep reading, despite not much having happened.

I actually got the Everyman library version of this, s..."

I am right about where you are having only just begun. I will add a little more after I finish the first section.

Hulu is streaming a series based on Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland about sisters Dolours and Marian Price who were bombers and frontline members of the IRA in the 1960s-80s and the mystery of a widowed mother of 10, Jean McConville, who was disappeared by the IRA in 1972. It’s 9 episodes and very, very good!

WndyJW wrote: "Hulu is streaming a series based on Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland about sisters Dolours and Marian Price who were bombers and frontline members ..."

Thanks Wendy! I've read a couple of reviews of that, and may check it out. I realized I don't think I've read anything set during the Irish Civil War before, just books that make reference to it.

I'm enjoying Troubles, while also quietly wondering when or if something is going to happen. In a way, I'm fine with it continuing to be about old people in a hotel, but I'm intrigued how it will all pull together. I think I'm about half way through now (going a bit slowly due to the book being too heavy for my commute).

And re: TV adaptations, I just saw a trailer for Netflix's "The Leopard," by another NYRB author, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

I am finding the use of newspaper extracts from all over the collapsing British Empire to be very effective in Troubles. I can see why it's considered a bit of a postcolonialist classic, despite it's quiet nature.

Welcome Wendy. I am just about the same place as Emily. I am loving the novel and already look forward to the remaining books in the trilogy. I put my reading of Troubles on hold while waiting for the Booker, Giller, Baillie-Gifford, and NBA to award their winners but will be back reading it tomorrow.

I just reread The Leopard last month and watched the Visconti film. I won't get to the Netflix immediately but I found myself comparing the way Farrell and Tomas di Lampedusa used background imagery as symbols, and especially how they used the physical setting to reinforce themes and atmosphere.

I am putting up the nominations for January in a few days to give everyone more time. I am curious how many of you reading Troubles would want to move right along to the next book in the trilogy or would rather take a break from Farrell first?

Sam wrote: "Welcome Wendy. I am just about the same place as Emily. I am loving the novel and already look forward to the remaining books in the trilogy. I put my reading of Troubles on hold while waiting for ..."

If we read The Siege of Krishnapur I'll read, as it's included in my same volume and I've heard from some that it's even better than Troubles! Do we have a December nomination yet?

Emily wrote: "Sam wrote: "Welcome Wendy. I am just about the same place as Emily. I am loving the novel and already look forward to the remaining books in the trilogy. I put my reading of Troubles on hold while ..."

I see you found the December nominations. As soon as the poll goes up I will be asking for January nominations.

Thanks, Sam. I read The Seige of Krishnapur in 2016 and remember liking it more than my review indicates. I remember it being about the absurdity of the British army’s adherence to rules and regulations no matter what.

If the group reads it, I’ll join in. This book has stayed with me and I’d like to reread it. It would be great to read The Singapore Grip some time too.

I have not made much progress, but hope to this evening. I realized that I know very little about Irish history. I thought Sinn Fein was established mid 20th century, for instance, so I did a little Wikisearch to learn names, revolts, etc.

I just read this from the Major, “For the important fact was this: the presence of the British signified a moral authority, not just an administrative one, here in Ireland as in India, Africa, and elsewhere.” (Pg 55 in nyrb edition.)

This struck me because of the galling British hubris, reflected in Capitalist, usually White cultures; they believe that their norms and mores are not only practical, but also morally superior, in spite of all the death and destruction, oppression and suffering of indigenous peoples when they are colonized by the British empire! But in the case of Ireland, as opposed to India and Africa, the Brits feel superior to White Christians-why? Is it as simple as greed? The Brits wanted the land so they demeaned the Irish people, calling them ignorant and incapable of ruling themselves or does it go father back to wars between royals over who rules the island of Ireland?

This is a good topic though I think it is not just limited to British or even humans. There are many examples of the same from history and similarities can be seen in the behavior of other species. I think your comment addresses the rationalization of the behavior, the justifying of it per se. The demonization of the opponent makes for more aggressive competition. If the other can be deemed enemy, inferior or in other ways objectified and reduced it is then easier for the rationalizing entities to more fiercely compete. What prompts us to engage in this behavior at all, is still being studied I think. I like to think it is a behavior we could someday change but that is wishful thinking right now.

Later, and I don't have my copy on me to look it up, there is a reference to the "dark, heavy" features of the Irish. I say this in response to your point about seeing White Christians as inferior on a similar level to dark-skinned colonial peoples. I think when one group sees another as inferior, they seek out the features to fit their idea of that inferiority. You see this a lot in the demonization of the poor, even today, as being fat, having bad teeth, poor dress sense and so on.

Obviously the Irish don't have it quite as hard as say, Indian colonial subjects. People like Sarah can be simultaneously Irish and a plausible romantic prospect for the Major... I doubt a middle-class disabled Indian girl would be framed the same way.

But I agree, Wendy. It's one reason to read old books, to remind ourselves of all the dreadful things that were said and thought. Around the halfway point, one character objects to the persecution of the innocent along with Sinn Feiners, and someone else replies "there are no innocent people in Ireland." I got a little chill of recognition, reading that.

I told a friend that I think the pithy ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’ could be applied to the psycho-ethical development of the human species. We are a bit advanced from the days of torture as a normal punishment for breaking laws, but not much. We’re in the adolescent stage-we know right from wrong and we say we want to be ethical and just, but it doesn’t take much for us to act out with violence, claiming the other is being unfair to us and it’s not our fault!

And you’re right, Sam, I was addressing the ways in which the English, in this case, justify their abuse by claiming to be morally superior. My guess is the root of this behavior is greed, the lust for power and bigotry.

That’s a good point, Emily, we do find ways to “other” the other, even if the other looks like us, shares a language and religion. We blame the poor for being lazy saying poverty results from low character.

WndyJW wrote: "And you’re right, Sam, I was addressing the ways in which the English, in this case, justify their abuse by claiming to be morally superior. My guess is the root of this behavior is greed, the lust for power and bigotry."

The root of this "behavior" was theological. If you don't understand the acrimonious history between Catholicism and Protestantism, you're going to be utterly bewildered by how the English could consider themselves to be "moral", let alone morally superior. Yet it would have been not only obvious to them, it would have been something that the vast majority would not have even thought to question.

And we're not actually talking about the English in this novel, even though it is about the British Empire. This book is about the Anglo-Irish, which was a distinct group identity whose members played a pivotal cultural and political, and at the same time paradoxical, role in the history of the Empire. Jonathan Swift was Anglo-Irish, as was Edmund Burke and J.G. Farrell himself. Some of the most radical supporters of Irish independence were Protestants of Anglo descent, as were many of its most reactionary opponents.

It has nothing to do with capitalism, "white culture" (whatever that is), etc.

I just enjoyed a scene where the Major looks around at all the Anglo-Irish guests at a party and notes the repeat features, the inbreeding, the long horsey faces, and reflects that Ripon did well to diversify the gene pool a bit by marrying a Catholic.

Pillsonista, the Major himself is English, rather than Anglo-Irish, so I'm not sure I 100% agree. The "auxiliaries" (the soldiers) are I believe English too, or in any case parachuted in from elsewhere in the British isles.

I do like your point that "Yet [their moral superiority] would have been not only obvious to them, it would have been something that the vast majority would not have even thought to question." As so often in this book, I feel the historical echoes rubbing up against the present world. What concepts do we hold superior today that we never think to question?

I wanted to make a brief comment on our last few comment exchanges because of time constraints. I am amazed how we are able to communicate despite our different cutural and educational backgrounds, approach to the topic, and our different frames of reference and interest. But I also love how the exchanges stimulate my interest in the novel and offer different perspectives for viewing it.

I have finished and for those that have finished, I am curious how you would classify it and how might it fit into similar genre or thematic types? For example, there are satiric, nihilistic and absurdist elements, but I am not sure I would place it with other novels labelled as such. The ending (which I will wait for others to finish before I discuss) seems very 20th century. Also, the novel shares much in common with the "hotel novel" genre, though it is like no other hotel novel I have read. What are your thoughts?

I also finished late last week. A very strong ending I thought. It was of course a foregone conclusion that the hotel would be destroyed or abandoned, but the climax, as such, is actually horrific...although anyone who has been reading the newspaper clippings shouldn't really be surprised. And then in keeping with the general tone of the book the horror is dialled back somewhat, and there's a wry, almost comedic tone (to me) in the final paragraphs. Just incredibly well done.

In terms of comparisons, I agree it's a hotel novel (though I'm struggling to think of other hotel novels I've read) and also a country house novel. As a country house novel I think there's some overlap with Rebecca, though the tone is totally different. I think there is some thematic overlap though. What else? I know there must be many books about the staggering final days of the aristocracy... maybe Lady Chatterley's Lover, or Women in Love?

The book it most strongly reminds me of is fellow NYRB classic The Ten Thousand Things, which has the disintegrating estate and the disintegrating empire. That one is set in Indonesia though.

I’m sorry to say I put this aside for now. It was an impulse read after watching Say Nothing, and I’m back to the books I was hoping to read now.

I was enjoying it, so I’ll get back to it at some point.

WndyJW wrote: "I’m sorry to say I put this aside for now. It was an impulse read after watching Say Nothing, and I’m back to the books I was hoping to read now.

I was enjoying it, so I’ll get back to it at some ..."

Sorry you had to drop it. The ending is pretty interesting.

I will get back to it, but this just wasn’t the right time for it.

I’m gonna start Troubles in a couple days. I, too, am behind in my monthly reads. I loved The Siege of Krishnapur so have high hopes for this one. I’ll report back when finished. Luckily I’ve already read our Dec. pick.

I really enjoyed this read. It was interesting living in the Majestic with Edward, the Major and the beguiling twins for a week while I read. Not much happens, yet a lot is going on with the interplay of relationships. Something about this novel really appealed to me and I felt I had more of an emotional understanding of the Troubles while reading. There is more background information supplied than say reading a Sebastian Barry novel (whom I really like also).
I've previously read The Seige of Krishnapur, but think I like this one just as much, if not more. On to The Singapore Grip.

I loved The Siege of Krishnapur, so I’ll have to get back to this in the future.

Has anyone read Milkman? It’s not an nyrb classic, but I believe it’s a future classic. We don’t know the city in which this brilliant novel takes, but it’s pretty clear it’s Belfast.

WndyJW wrote: "I loved The Siege of Krishnapur, so I’ll have to get back to this in the future.

Has anyone read Milkman? It’s not an nyrb classic, but I believe it’s a future classi..."

I'm with you that Milkman is a future classic. Probably my favourite book of recent years.

Same here, Emily. I just sent a copy to my BFF and she is loving it.