"In any nation built on a civil war, the monster becomes possible. Just look at Ireland to find out. Kill your brother and few deaths are unthinkable. "If
Joseph O'Connor puts these words into the mouth of Daniel J. Mc Lelland, one of narrator of his novel Redemption Falls , he could pronounce them. For this Irish novelist born in the conflict had to learn to look at the world through the prism of hatred and fratricidal transmitted. We guess it was built by querying the catechism: the other side of me, the enemy who could be my friend, my lover, why not in another context, that he should hate him, the killing perhaps, if I have the strength. At the heart of the work of this talented writer much, there is first antagonism. This is the first level of confrontation between people. What to do with this hostility, turning what is it possible? These questions run through as a wave of exciting and captivating novels that project us in a disturbing human odyssey.
In " hills alert " superb new collection of good Christians, a young veteran of the IRA layer unknowingly with a British soldier. This discovery will expose them both to a deadly dilemma. Are they the pawns of a tragedy played in advance? There are contexts or love, friendship or simple humanity require a real political courage and may lead you to the firing squad or lynching. This moment of truth in the life of someone he weighs up his mixed feelings - love and hate unexpected learned - his cowardice, loyalty, fear and courage, Joseph O'Connor fascinates and haunts each of his stories. Which were born in the Irish peat, between famine and rebellion, to achieve universal and come talk to us. "Let every man be the sum of his choices is only the truth. Each can also be something more. "
That" something "irrational in the grain oiled machine, is what allows us to go beyond the role we have been assigned once and for all militant IRA owner full of arrogance, assassin, countess frivolous, Confederate soldier or veteran of the Union. What makes us human, exactly. In his novels, Joseph O'Connor from frozen situations, archetypal: in the Etoile des Mers , named the boat carries four hundred die-the-Irish hunger and fifteen privileged to New York and hope a better destiny.
On board, an assassin in tatters, Pius Mulvey, who came to kill Lord David Merredith Kingscourt, ruined owner who hopes to rebuild America. It is November 1847, at the heart of the great famine decimated Ireland and drove millions of Irish to emigrate to the risk of their lives. L'Etoile des Mers is in these "coffin ships" last chance. Everything seems to separate the damned of the decks - dying one after the other - the wealthy first class, indifferent and narcissistic. But things are not what they seem, and over a passage full of suspense, the masks fall and the characters become more complex while the reader goes from revelation to revelation. Joseph O'Connor's books are journeys that take us as we are, steeped in certainties and prejudices, for us driving, breaks in turnarounds, struck and delighted, spanning the entire range of human emotions, about this elsewhere that we reach at the same time as the characters in this upheaval which laughter mingles with tears. One might expect that the Irish novelist is interested in the Civil War, the fratricidal war of choice, which is part of Irish history since tens of Millers Irish emigrant there were enrolled mainly in the ranks of the Union. This is done with his latest novel, Redemption Falls , which begins in January 1865, several months before the surrender General Lee, chief of the Confederate Army, sealing the end of a butcher of the worst that America has ever known.
A young girl wanders the southern states in search of his little brother who fled Jeddo. Her name is Eliza Duane Mooney. She is afraid but she advances in these devastated regions battered by cruel and bloodthirsty bandits, where one crosses like ghosts ragged and starving remnants of the moth-eaten Confederation: "Back away from view a hut. The gravel road in the thick horn. Splinters of stone in the lacerated feet. Splinters of pain, cramping in the hamstring, vain prayers for shoes.
It took almost a month to cross the Louisiana. About twenty miles a day. Twenty-six miles. A soldier kicked and fed, may have defected to face such a trial. Eliza Duane Mooney not. "
Meanwhile, in Redemption Falls, a new governor is responsible for keeping order on behalf of the Union. General O'Keefe is a drive, Irish rebel who survived imprisonment and a shipwreck before joining the Northern Army. But it has much to do to prevail in the Territories of the mountains, rough and brutal land where it stands out as an enemy. He received a wild mute, one of those kids spit out by the war and was attached to it. And then there is his wife, Lucia, passionate and full, whose character is as impossible to bend than his. All these characters, Eliza, the lost child, the General and his wife, struggling to save a few precious crumbs of their previous lives in a world in distress. But the spiral of violence and misery that surrounds them could take them in turn. If Redemption Falls as Etoile des Mers , is both historical novel and breathless thriller, it contains the themes dear to the author:
"It was the day the new arrivals were Appomattox. The war was over, Lee had surrendered. In his surrender there was distrust, or what Southerners call the nobility. Its nice uniform pressed as to the ball, his gloriously caparisoned stallion. Conquering armies had looked down to them. Its buttons were so duffle they sparkled in the sun. Grant, the victor, was wearing a uniform of a private. It was the loser who seemed to be the champion.
The armistice signed - It was not very long - the rebels had laid down their arms in piles on the road, they crossed to get to where stood their conquerors. The northerners had their hand out and offered food packages, bandages. The rebels then were returned to their families. Those who had a horse had been allowed to keep, so they can again work the land. Six hundred thousand dead. The South to ashes. All it took to stop the killing, was crossing a road. "
Cross the road, this thing is so simple and so difficult is willing to see the world from the other side. On the other side. Leave his perspective forever, and agree to be changed. To get there, sometimes you go through the most naked violence. And that's what will happen to Bill Sweeney, the hero of the magnificent Irish In .
Small satellite dishes representative living in Galway, Ireland, he wrote letters to his daughter Maeve. The girl is in a coma since a band of thugs brutally attacked one evening in the gas station where she worked. Billie Sweeney since become a man obsessed, consumed by hate and grief. He attends trial of his assailants, when one of them, their alleged leader, escaped. Therefore, it has only one obsession: to find him, track him down, make him suffer, kill it. I do not reveal the twists of this novel is one of the most beautiful I have ever read, but all I have developed above it is expressed to perfection the strength of the conflict , injuries it inflicts collateral, hatred that results. But also something that makes us something else than the sum of our choices, and reminds us of our humanity. If I barely touched by the richness of the work of Joseph O'Connor its evocative power of his talent and romantic, I hope in any case have given you want to throw you promptly on his novels.
Here the nice review of Thomas Sinaeve on The Irish .
soon.
Gaëlle Nohant
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