WHAT is it about Irish writing that reduces English reviewers to gibbering superlatives? Last weekend the Sunday Times devoted its book review section to the seasonal topic of holiday reading, and at the head of a page on Irish books we were told that critic Penny Perrick "melts in the face of Irish genius." Indeed she does.
"Where to start?" she begins helplessly. "Ireland is called the Land of Saints and Scholars, but scribes and scribblers would be more like it." She continues. "You would need more than a holiday to read the best Irish fiction you'd need a lifetime." Well, perhaps a year or so, Penny, unless you're thinking of tackling Finnegans Wake, which is not exactly Torremolinos beach reading. Indeed, she wisely suggests Dubliners, "since short stories are perfect holiday reading," and for the same reason she also recommends William Trevor's Collected Stories, which are "as addictive as Irish oysters you'll always crave just one more" like another Rolo, I suppose.
This leads her into a contemplation of the unique quality of Irish fiction. "The Irish flair for story telling has long been recognised it is something to do, I think, with the deliciousness of the language when Irish people speak and write it." So that's it, though seemingly geography plays its part, too "Irish writers seem quietly and delightedly astonished by their beautiful country." This, you'll agree, is especially noticeable in the works of Dermot Bolger and Roddy Doyle all those rolling hills and verdant valleys.
However, reading Irish books can also be dangerous. There may be "no more blissful pastime than sitting on a jetty above lapping water reading The Best Of Myles," but "don't laugh so much that you topple into the sea". Safer perhaps not to read Myles while sitting on a jetty if you try him in your living room, at least the carpet should cushion your fall.
Still, Penny's enthusiasm is infectious, and so I'm thinking of performing a similar service for English literature. I'll be devoting a page to English books worth taking on holiday and will be recommending especially the cheeky chappies to be found in any of Martin Amis's breezily feel good novels, the laugh a minute, life's like that observations of Will Self (England's answer to Joseph O'Connor), the pastoral peace that forms the backdrop to Jeanette Winterson's lush romantic stories, and the zany misunderstandings that occur when Shakespeare's curmudgeonly (but lovable) old king gets into a silly row with his daughters. All's well that ends well, of course.
RODDY DOYLE had better look to his laurels. Colin Bateman, recently profiled in this newspaper, has been described by the Independent on Sunday as an Irish Carl Hiaasen, while the style magazine Arena roundly declared of one of his books. "If Roddy Doyle was as good as people say, he would probably write novels like this."
Like what? Well, a glossy, four page pull out advertisement in the current issue of The Bookseller describes Bateman as "at the cutting edge of humorous fiction" and gives some examples of his razor sharp wit. Here he is on romance "I have never been a ladies' man. Perhaps in my private moments I liked to think of myself as a sexual wildebeest no body as such, but a lot of horn."
Yes, that's certainly extremely droll, though not as hilarious as his observations on time travel. "What scientists have always failed to take into account is the importance of alcohol to time travel. A drunk can move effortlessly from one place to another he can remember leaving, he can remember arriving, but has no knowledge of what went on in between." Side splitting, no?
Well, some think so. BBC television has just bought the rights to his first novel, Divorcing Jack another, Cycle of Violence, has just been optioned for film production while a third,
Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men, is also scheduled for television production. Oh, and a six part BBC series written by him is due for screening next year. The guy obviously has something, so maybe his publishers should select better examples of his humour for their blurbs.
I see, too, that Mr Bateman also won the Betty Trask award for lone of his novels. It's fortunate that he wasn't a woman contestant for this year's Betty Trask prize, or he might have incurred the wrath of one of that award's judges, Graham Lord.
Mr Lord felt that a third of the entrants were "depressingly squalid and sleazy" and that "most of the sleaze had been written by young women". The Trask prizes, he pointed out, were meant to go to authors who have written novels of "a romantic or traditional nature", and thus his lament that so many entries "were littered with four letter words and squalid, sexually explicit and tacky passages".
Responding to the charge from novelist Louise Doughty (whose book he had hated) that he was a "sexist, crusty old curmudgeon", he heatedly declared. "Ms Doughty calls me sexist because I did not like her novel. Well, none of the four other Trask judges did much, either and three of the judges were women." So there.
MR LORD probably wouldn't fancy the novels in the Words worth Classic Erotica series which are currently selling for £2 downstairs at Eason's. Most of these come from the Victorian age and aren't overly endowed with literary quality, as can be guessed from titles such as The Way of a Man with a Maid, and A Night in a Moorish Harem.
A couple though have real literary merit. Teleny, attributed by some scholars to Oscar Wilde, and the anonymous Beatrice are cases in point. Porn? Probably, but superbly written, which makes their frankness all the more arresting.