As I’ve blogged before, I prefer the novel to short stories, but I’m very fond of William Trevor’s writing, and would probably read a report about Irish drains if it had his name on the cover. The Story of Lucy Gault is my favourite, such a sad, haunting tale, but then so is much of his work…Felicia’s Journey is sad too, and there is a melancholy tone to Nights at the Alexander, – which seems to be out-of-print, as is The Old Boys – but you can still get hold of After Rain, Death in Summer and The Children of Dynmouth (the only book I didn’t really enjoy). Love and Summer (shortlisted for the 2009 Booker) is on the TBR but I saw Cheating at Canasta at the library and so I’m reading that first.
Anyway, I just had to begin reading this short story collection in the middle – with the story that gives the book its title – because ‘Cheating at Canasta’ in set in Harry’s Bar in Venice where The Spouse and I had (ruinously expensive) cocktails in 2005. Did we quarrel there, as the young couple do in Trevor’s story? I can’t remember, though of course in the space of six weeks away from home we do squabble from time to time. I can’t imagine how we would react if some stranger intervened, as Mallory does, albeit with discretion. His judgement that the couple risk losing the opportunity of a contented marriage derives from his own loss, but still…
That sense of loss is there again in The Dressmaker’s Child, and fatalism too, as it is in The Room. ( The Room won the O. Henry Award for short stories of exceptional merit in 2007, as did Folie a Deux in 2008.) However it was Men of Ireland that is, for me, the most interesting of these tales: it’s about a ne’er do well returning to his home town to demand hush-money from a priest, and it’s an eloquent expression of the sense of loss that abuse revelations have brought to the Irish. They are having a bad time of it lately, what with economic disaster following so hard on the heels of their ‘Irish Tiger economy’ and the shame of priestly child-abuse impacting perhaps more in a country where the Catholic church is so deeply embedded in their culture and history.
Social change is often a theme in Trevor’s oeuvre and I wonder what influence these unwelcome changes will have on Irish writing…
Author: William Trevor
Title: Cheating at Canasta
Publisher: Thorndike Windsor Paragon, 2008
ISBN: 9781410404183
Source: Kingston Library.
I need to read more Trevor, I know. I’ve only read a couple of short stories and have enjoyed them, but I think my next one should be a novel. Love your comment about squabbling while travelling! Would be a strange couple that never did I reckon.
By: whisperinggums on December 4, 2010
at 8:54 pm
Sue, I would love to read one of your thoughtful posts about Trevor, putting him in the wider picture of contemporary short story authors!
By: Lisa Hill on December 4, 2010
at 9:48 pm
Why thanks Lisa – but I feel I’m reading all these short stories but not quite putting them all into some sort of overall perspective. But, you never know, some inspiration might befall me…
By: whisperinggums on December 4, 2010
at 10:21 pm
Do you read much in the way of translated short fiction? A little while ago I came across a website that published short stories in translation but I unsubscribed from it along with many others when I went overseas (to keep my ISP costs down) and now I can’t find it…
I ask because five minutes after I finished Trevor and his deeply melancholy stories I’m reading Elfriede Jelinek, who won the Nobel in 2004. I’ve only read 10 pages but already she seems to be a bit like Elias Canetti (Auto da Fe) in the way she depicts extremes of behaviour and I’m wondering if this is a kind of European post-Nazi thing? It’s so different from the quiet, reflective tone of Irish writing, or the post-Empire angst happening in Britain but I haven’t read enough works in translation to make any valid generalisations about it.
You know who it reminds me of? Rosa Capelli!
By: Lisa Hill on December 4, 2010
at 10:37 pm
Whom I haven’t read yet! Was just thinking about that the other day. No, I haven’t read translated short fiction for a long time. It was de Maupassant who first got me into short stories a few decades ago, but, other than some Murakami I can’t right now think of non-English language short story writers I’ve read recently.
What you’re describing could very well be a European post-Nazi thing as you suggest.
By: whisperinggums on December 4, 2010
at 10:48 pm
I shall read on and let you know!
By: Lisa Hill on December 4, 2010
at 10:56 pm