Irish Times writers review some of the latest releases in paperback.
We all know about Lady Gregory, don't we? Muse to Yeats, tireless champion of the Abbey Theatre, collector of airy-fairy folktales, stern Anglo-Irish matron. Take a novelist's shrewd eye for character, however, add a wicked sense of humour and an effortless ability to juggle ambiguity, and you get Lady Gregory's Toothbrush - a near-perfect biographical essay which explores what was effectively a double life, and traces this extraordinary woman's very real influence on contemporary Ireland. The book shimmers with intelligence, resonates far beyond its apparent scope, flirts - as she, apparently, did - with romance; and all in just 100-plus pages. Small, beautiful, brilliant.
Lady Gregory's Toothbrush Colm Tóibín Picador, £7.99
- Arminta Wallace
The approach this book takes to the British Empire is intriguing and will likely turn much of our understanding of that subject on its head. In the first phase of empire, Britons were often captives rather than captors and, rather than imposing their world-view on peoples of different cultures, they interacted with these civilisations. The book looks at British experiences in the Mediterranean region, America and India. In some ways, what happened to British captives in these varied parts of the world was quite similar, in other ways very different. One interesting similarity was that poorer, marginal or alienated whites frequently reacted more flexibly when forced across cultural and political boundaries. It was in India that the British best succeeded in resolving the challenges of different kinds of captivity. How they did so is told in this powerful and compellingly original reappraisal of the meaning of empire.
Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850 Linda Colley Pimlico, £8.99
- Brian Maye
Arthur Griffith offered Hungary's epic struggle for independence from the mid-19th century as a template for Irish nationalists in the early part of the 20th. Key elements in Hungary's success would be familiar to the Irish reader - unyielding leadership, abstention from the imperial parliament, economic protectionism and a resistance to conscription into the army. A Hungarian solution to the Irish question had obvious limitations, not least in terms of context. In the struggle for pre-eminence in the region, the burgeoning power of Bismark's Prussia was proving irresistible and Austria was already withering. It couldn't countenance a hostile Hungary on its other flank. In contrast, Britain was at the height of its militaristic powers. For all that, this book - in the Classics of Irish History series - is an interesting reminder of the broader European influences on Irish nationalism.
The Resurrection of Hungary: a Parallel for Ireland Arthur Griffith
University College Dublin Press, €18
- John Moran
"That nature never did betray the heart that loved her," the young poet William Wordsworth asserted in 'Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey'. But nature did betray the Wordsworth family when the poet's brother was drowned at sea. In 1806, John Wordsworth achieved his life's ambition when, as captain of The Abergavenny, a ship of the East India Company's fleet, he was awarded a prestigious route to China. The route permitted access to the Bengal/Canton opium trade, with the beguiling promise of wealth to be shared with his sister and brother. However, with its cargo of luxuries and silver dollars, the ship was wrecked off the Shambles Shoal in Weymouth Bay - 260 people were drowned. Charles and Mary Lamb, S. T. Coleridge, the Wordsworth ménage of Dove Cottage and the East India Board members come to life on the page as they grapple with the catastrophe
The Wreck of the Abergavenny: The Wordsworths and Catastrophe
Alethea Hayter Picador, £6.99.
- Kate Bateman
This is the second reprint of work O'Neill published a decade before At Swim, Two Boys. While Kilbrack (1990), reintroduced to us some months ago, is more entertainingly puckish than its original reception suggested, Scribner seems to have lesser hopes for Disturbance (1989) since it performs as a kind of advertisement, with the first chapter of At Swim attached at the end. The centre of the novel is the game of Disturbance that the narrator, motherless 14-year-old Nilus Moore, plays with a matt-black jigsaw while his world physically and mentally collapses around him. Though elementally plotted, the story is populated by quirky characters and is told in language relished as much for its idiomatic sound as its verisimilitude. Disturbance is no masterpiece, but it could have stood alone as a playful little diversion without being so glaringly cast in the shadow of the author's biggest work.
Disturbance Jamie O'Neill Scribner, £6.99
- John Kenny
No sponsorship deals for this writer, whose first novel is a reverse 1984 satire set in a not-so-distant future where employees are named after the corporations they work for, the police and the National Rifle Association are privatised enforcers, and most of the Western world has been unambiguously incorporated into America. In this scenario of unrestrained competition, the villainous John Nike's idea of a marketing campaign is to gun down a bunch of teenagers wearing his company's latest trainers, thereby making the brand even more glamorous and desirable. Nike's only problem is Jennifer Government, a disillusioned agent of "capitalizm", still sporting her bar-code tattoo, who is determined to hold him to account. Unfortunately, Jennifer's anti-capitalizm crusade soon gets bogged down in plot detail, with too many minor characters hauled into the action, and the pace and humour of the book's opening is lost in the mix.
Jennifer Government Max Barry Abacus, £9.99
- Giles Newington