Hart breac

I finished the Hamilton and it was not the breezy read I think I was expecting. As someone of German and Irish heritage, I have fantasised about having been brought up to speak German and Irish instead having to expend so much effort to try to acquire them as an adult. It's like someone saw into those fantasies and responded by writing a cautionary tale.

You start out thinking that Hamilton's Irish-speaking father is something of a fanatic. About a third of the way through, when a "man named Gearóid" visits and you do a bit of research and determine this is Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, founder of Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, you realise he is a full-on fascist and his home is his castle. By contrast, his mother is a gentle and loving sort. But as more of her tragic past begins to permeate the narrative, you also realise she's as isolated and trapped as the rest of the family, and without peers to confide in she ends up sharing too much knowledge with her children for them to fully process at such a young age.

At times, the book becomes so harrowing, I simply had to set it down for a while. In fact, for a palate-cleanser I turned to Daniel Woodrell. (Let that sink in for a few minutes.) The tone is brilliantly consistent. Instead of writing with the quasi-omniscient voice of a man of the world looking back, he adopts that of a precocious adolescent and sticks with it. It's chillingly effective at making you face the effect of the violence and cruelty of his surroundings on such a vulnerable child. He relates his acting-out matter-of-factly, without any attempt at explanation or psychologisation, and the account is more powerful for it.

Apparently he's written a couple of sequels, but I don't think I'm ready to read them yet. Borstal Boy might end up being more of the same, at least to some degree, but I think I've put off reading it long enough. I might have to find something with a little more humour to balance it out, though, perhaps some Roddy Doyle or Brendan O'Carroll's The Mammy.