Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
To hell and back, 24 Mar 2008
As a 70's child living in England, the troubles in Ireland were something that you were aware of, but unless you were living in London, then they didnt seem to represent an intimate threat to your existence. It wasnt until i had visited my sister in Brighton and saw the damage done by the bombing there, that you kind of got a sense, that no where was perhaps untouchable by this group of people. Step forward to the present though, and thanks to catastrophic errors by this government, the threat of terroism has never been greater. The face of terror may have changed but never its personality.
Reading Kevin Myers book provides an intimate portrayal of the effect that conflict has on individual lives. Lives that were often cut short too soon, leaving many families destroyed forever. Indeed, it is this sense of loss which makes his book for such compelling reading. Who was it that said, 'the first casualty of war, is the loss of innocence'. This is so true, especially his accounts of a family that was wiped out by an IRA car crash.
Like a lot of people i am sure, unless you were there, then the knowledge of what was happening across the shores was limited at best, though as Myers highlights from his own account, you could be there, but still not fully understand the complexity of the situation.
As a novice to the troubles in Ireland, Myers book lends a hand to this lack of knowledge (Loyalists? Who were they?) and reminding you that on all sides of the conflict were there some decent people. Myers book though does have light hearted moments concerning his accounts of his sexual exploits, and some serious drinking in the process. One question though Kevin. How come your liver hasnt gone the way of George Best?
It certainly made for a refreshing read away from some biography by a Z list celebrity, which are in no short supply of these days, and seem to pollute the book shelves at the moment.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"That was Belfast.", 10 April 2008
I have read countless books which have used the events of this era as their focus and theme. Having grown up on the fringes of south Belfast myself during the early to late-seventies, I don't think I have ever read such a balanced narrative on "the troubles" and the blinkered tribalism that fuelled them. Even though by the final chapter when Myers writes of "...the darkness of my time there" - and by then we know he means the despair of guilt at possible wrong decisions, a failed love affair which still haunts him, lost friends and general disillusionment at suddenly discovering your twenties are gone - this is nonetheless an uplifting narrative where the writer's appetite for life remains strong. True, for every humorous encounter with, say, a Swedish prostitute ("...how I learnt the "Excuse me" is whorish for goodbye forever...") there are several encounters with terrifying characters such as Rab Brown, the UVF psycopath, and the odious John McGuffin, the bar-room socialist and parasite. This is powerful writing. One gets the feeling that Myers has set out to exorcise his own ghosts. I hope he has succeeded.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'd give it six stars if I could, 15 Feb 2008
I really am not keen on reading about Northern ireland and the Troubles, too depressing and upsetting, but after two friends in publishing mentioned reading it, I gave it a try. I can't express how good this book is - it's about Myers as a young journalist covering the troubles and the sheer horror of the troubles, drinking with Loyalist psychopaths, sleeping with the wife of a Republican psycopaths, watching the insanity of Belfast. shocking and amusing in parts. outstanding. It also has some incredibly informative narratives where he explains, for example, how the British welfare state inadvertatntly funded the troubles. he charts the evils and stupidities of all sides with a healthy disdain for IRA, UVF and the buffoons in Whitehall and Stormont.
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