KLASSEN ON BOOKS - June/July 2015 - By John Klassen (Review)
John Klassen
Mairtin O Cadhain
O Cadhain (1905-1970), whose name could most closely be rendered in English as Marteen O’Kine, was an Irish novelist, short story writer, journalist and school teacher. O Cadhain is considered Gaelic Ireland’s most important writer and a pioneer in Irish-language modernism. He wrote principally in Irish and also translated some works from English. The Dirty Dust is considered one of the greatest achievements of the Irish novel.
The Dirty Dust
This is a rollicking, rolling, burst-out-loud funny novel. It is set in the Irish countryside, around the end of WWII, with a wide cast of colourful characters who share the unique characteristic of being dead. Everyone is interred in the “dirty dust”. They cannot move, but they can talk…..and they do, incessantly. The entire book is dialogue.
The book was translated from the Irish and in his introduction, the translator captured its essence: “The Dirty Dust should best be read as a symphony of voices, although a cacophony of voices might be more appropriate. It is at turns a series of monologues, which can become duologues, rise up to vindictive diatribes and fade out at judicious and injudicious moments. There is a narrative, but you have to listen for the threads. There is more than one story, but they are all interrelated. We have to suss out what each person is saying according to each’s own obsession---a phrase can tell us who is talking---or each’s one particular moan, or each’s big bugbear like a signature tune. It is like switching channels on an old radio, now you hear this, and then you hear the other. Once you get the knack, the story rattles on with pace.” The novel is a celebration of the Irish penchant for storytelling traditions. It also comprises the freest, funniest, most inventive cursing and swearing that I have ever read.
The characters are not buried in the upper-crust Pound graves, but rather the lower class Fifteen Shillings graves which are, nevertheless, higher on the scale than the bottom level of graves worth only a Half Guinea. And here, in that never-ending talk, the characters re-live every slight, every hurt, every triumph, every prejudice, every hate, every jealousy, every envy of their lives centred on family, neighbours or acquaintances, all filtered through the human condition of untrustworthy, self-serving, rationalizing, memory. Life above, as illustrated by the talk below, is hard: poverty is dire, tools and money are borrowed and not repaid, turf and seaweed are stolen, a donkey and cattle trespass on land belonging to others, the pub owner waters his liquor, the pub-owner’s daughter is free with her sexual favours, the Postmistress reads everyone’s mail and gossips about it, the terms of wills and insurance fraud occupy a lot of people, superstition and casual racism abound, people pontificate on who is marrying whom and for what reasons. The people are, for the most part, dirt-poor, but the smallest measurements of social status are known and tracked and remarked upon. The dead do not know what is happening above so new corpses are welcomed as sources of information on the status and lives and activities of those still living.
Death does not alleviate the woes of ‘life’; it adds to them. New, additional measurements of social status are compared: the size and cost of funerals, the use of carts or hearses to transport the deceased to the graveyard, the length and number of obituaries and in which publications, the quality of caskets, and most important: the quality of headstones whether wood, stone or, the ultimate: Connemara marble with Irish inscriptions and a metal picket fence around the plot.
A number of chapters begin with soliloquies by the “Trumpet of the Graveyard” which enjoins readers to, “Hearken to what I have to say! You must hearken unto my voice…”. Almost tongue-in-cheek, it contrasts life above and underground, always with the reminder that the former will always end up in the latter where the, “purr of passing ambition, the ostentation of transient beauty, the desires of unrequited dreams” no longer weigh.
The Dirty Dust is a unique, boisterous, inventive, funny perspective on the human condition.
Carolina De Robertis
De Robertis is a writer of Uruguayan origins who grew up in England, Switzerland and California; she now lives in Oakland. The Invisible Mountain was De Robertis’s first novel, followed by Perla and most recently, The Gods of Tango (to be released in July, 2015). She also translated Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra, and The Neruda Case, by Roberto Ampeuero, both Chilean writers. She is active on social media with thoughts on writing, reading, and translating.
The Invisible Mountain
The novel focuses on the lives of three generations of women and their families through a history of Uruguay (with some involvement of Argentina under Peron) from about 1900 through WWI and WWII, the upheaval of urban warfare with the leftist, radical Tupamaros in the 60s and early 70s, and the military dictatorship that was in effect 1973-1985.
This is good, old-fashioned, character-driven story-telling through a turbulent historical period; no elusive metaphors, no nuanced allusions , no broad philosophical musings, no meretricious literary fireworks.....just well-paced, fascinating stories that celebrate the power of the human spirit through connected lives buffeted by life and by society, told in rhythmic, descriptive prose that brings different times and places alive and opens windows into the human condition.
An overall thrust of the novel is found in De Robertis’s explanation of the title:
“According to national lore, the name “Montevideo” comes from an early Portuguese sailor who, on sighting the land that would become Uruguay, called out “Monte vide eu” or “I see a mountain.” The great irony of this story—which is something of a national joke, as well as a potent parable of this little nation’s self-perception—is that the city of Montevideo lacks elevation. The mountain the man was referring to is actually a low, unassuming hill. I see the themes of this story running through the characters’ lives as they hunger and strive for intangible entities they cannot see. The title also resonates with me because I see this book, in a sense, as a sprawling love letter to Montevideo—a salute to a small, inimitable city that, against all odds or visual evidence, dares to bear a name that evokes mountains.”
The “intangibles” that De Robertis refers to, and which she brings strongly to life through her characters, are the drive for a better life amid unforeseen opportunities, the desire, lust and love of youth, the willingness to take bold steps to re-shape life, the wheels of generations in harmony and strife, the reaching for fulfillment in career, family, and balancing those often conflicting pressures within the demands of society and economy, and, in the end, the enduring power of family, love, forgiveness, redemption. All of that and the shifting perspectives and evaluations of life, the growing awareness that “life was full of lost worlds” and that through family, sometimes, one can connect to people and places and lives.
The three woman characters: Pajarita, Eva, and Salome are fully drawn, vivid and real. De Robertis draws you into their lives and into their stories. A fine read.
Tags: John Klassen