The Dark
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Product Description
Product Description
Set in rural Ireland, John McGahern's second novel is about adolescence and a guilty, yet uncontrollable sexuality that is contorted and twisted by both puritanical state religion and a strange, powerful and ambiguous relationship between son and widower father.
Against a background evoked with quiet, undemonstrative mastery, McGahern explores with precision and tenderness a human situation, superficially very ordinary, but inwardly an agony of longing and despair.
About the Author
John McGahern was born in Dublin in 1934 and brought up in the West of Ireland. He was a graduate of University College, Dublin. He worked as a Primary School teacher and held various academic posts at universities in Britain, Ireland and America. In the opinion of the Observer, John McGahern was 'Ireland's greatest living novelist'. He was the author of six highly acclaimed novels and four collections of short stories, and was the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship, the American-Irish Award, the Prix Etrangère Ecureuil and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Amongst Women, which won both the GPA and the Irish Times Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and made into a four-part BBC television series. His work has appeared in anthologies and has been translated into many languages. His last book, Memoir, was published in 2005.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In this novel, McGahern ably explores the pain of adolescence
in rural Ireland imn the 1960s. Whilst much of the imagery employed by the author may now seem cliched, its power resides
in the sparing prose.
in rural Ireland imn the 1960s. Whilst much of the imagery employed by the author may now seem cliched, its power resides
in the sparing prose.
The story is told through the voice of a young Irish boy and the conflict he experiences with his violent widower father.
The priesthood offer one way out of from the seemingly hopeless eternal drudgery on the farm.
Out of such apparently unpromising material McGahern evinces
the inner world of the protagonist.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I purchased this novel because of a quotation in a theological book by a Catholic priest. I wasn't disappointed. Until a few weeks ago I'd never heard of John McGahern, but the passage quoted whetted my appetite and intrigued my curiosity. Words are inadequate to express how much I have enjoyed and loved "The Dark." It is both a profoundly human story as well as a moving one. There are obvious allusions to the author's own life. No one could write as John McGahern does with such passion and understanding unless he had drawn from his own experiences. McGahern's prose is superb and his descriptions of the Irish countryside and human situations are beautiful. I was moved to tears several times. I feel a better person for having read it.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
As with so many books by Irish authors one is assailed by the deeply brooding darkness of Irish life. Is this because Catholicism has kept its credo so much to the fore of young lives at schools in Ireland? But why blame only Irish priests - what about the underground wars that have taken place there and which still stir and trouble the land? I don't understand Ireland well enough to understand the nature of its darkness, even though I have Irish blood. Explanation must lie in history, of course, of which I have only a partial and vague knowledge.
Nevertheless, insight is attained by reading - not just this book, but the books of Michael Collins, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien and this man, John McGahern. This book addresses the darkness through a young lad with promise who comes to wonder if he has it in him to become a priest. Youth itself seems a sin to young Mahoney as his father's night time caresses leave him sick with loathing. But he is an intelligent boy and there is the chance for him to go to the big school and later to University. Life at home is dumb misery much of the time, but as he reaches later adolescence, he stands up to his father when he violently attacks one of the younger girls.
Young Mahoney has to struggle with his conscience as he is taken on retreat by one of the local priests. He half wants to be shut of the world and safe, secure, with God, which is how he sees priesthood, but he has uncontrollable (i.e. perfectly normal) night-time urges and fantasizes about girls. He is in anguish much of the time, desperate to escape the grubbing and scraping of his background. As he grows he comes to understand his father better, though their relationship is always going to be tense and ungiving because of past events.
There is a change of tense near the end of the book and I felt it should all have been written in the first person. The narrator is addressed as 'you' almost throughout, which leaves some sentences sounding odd, even though one can see he did this to lessen the gap between protagonist and reader. Having said that, the writing is searchingly lucid and wonderfully wrought. This book is deeply affecting and revealing of the dark.
Nevertheless, insight is attained by reading - not just this book, but the books of Michael Collins, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien and this man, John McGahern. This book addresses the darkness through a young lad with promise who comes to wonder if he has it in him to become a priest. Youth itself seems a sin to young Mahoney as his father's night time caresses leave him sick with loathing. But he is an intelligent boy and there is the chance for him to go to the big school and later to University. Life at home is dumb misery much of the time, but as he reaches later adolescence, he stands up to his father when he violently attacks one of the younger girls.
Young Mahoney has to struggle with his conscience as he is taken on retreat by one of the local priests. He half wants to be shut of the world and safe, secure, with God, which is how he sees priesthood, but he has uncontrollable (i.e. perfectly normal) night-time urges and fantasizes about girls. He is in anguish much of the time, desperate to escape the grubbing and scraping of his background. As he grows he comes to understand his father better, though their relationship is always going to be tense and ungiving because of past events.
There is a change of tense near the end of the book and I felt it should all have been written in the first person. The narrator is addressed as 'you' almost throughout, which leaves some sentences sounding odd, even though one can see he did this to lessen the gap between protagonist and reader. Having said that, the writing is searchingly lucid and wonderfully wrought. This book is deeply affecting and revealing of the dark.
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