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Reading Group; A long long way
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Message 1.Â
Posted by plum the depths (U5587356) on Saturday, 20th June 2009
I know I'm a few hours early but I might find it difficult to get in tomorrow so hope no one minds.
A long long way by Sebastian Barry.
This is the story of a young Irish man called Willie Dunne born at one of the worse times in history. The worse because he and so many of his age would be called up to fight in the First World War, the Great war, the war to end all wars.
This story takes on a slightly different slant because Willie is from Southern Ireland and the reasons for joining or volunteering are mixed. The Irish are not only fighting the Germans - with all the patriotic fervor and righteous indignation that went with that- but for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Rule. Ostensibly the story is about Willie but really it is about or for, all the young Irish men that went to war. It is their often unknown tale being told.
Barry's prose is very musical it has a rhythm to it that moves like poetry. On reading you can hear the Irish lilt so clearly which is very moving when reading some of the horrors. And there are many horrors included. The accounts of the mustard gas attacks were very graphic and the story about the girl in the barn was positively nauseous.
Now here comes the rub. Although I can appreciate the prose and the story certainly needed telling (yet again another reason the Irish hate the English so ) I didn't feel I knew Willie, I just couldn't get attached to him. Even at the end when he writes the letter to his father and his father writes back but just too late, I didn't feel massively awful, sad but not connected.
I've read other WW1 books and have been left sobbing but this just didn't touch me the same way.
I'm really looking forward to hearing all your views. -
Message 2
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
Thank you for introducing the Reading Group thread this month, honest.
I thought 'A Long Long Way' was interesting and very well written but, like you, I couldn't really engage with Willie. Maybe Sebastian Barry was trying to cover too much ground, and the character got a bit lost amongst it all.
Some passages were very moving, and others were so graphic I could hardly bare to read them, but overall I found it a bit unsatisfying.
I look forward to discussing the book further, especially if there is a wide range of opinion about it.
Rusty -
Message 3
Posted by Josey (U1242413) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
Interesting how views of a book differ. I read "A Long, Long Way" some time ago, and completely engaged with Willie -so much so that I "knew" what must happen in the final pages and wanted, yet didn't want, to read them. I finished the book in floods of tears. I found the history interesting: the Irish engagement, the first use of gas on the battlefield and so on. One of my top books of the decade.
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Message 4
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
We can agree there, Josey - I thought what happened in the end was inevitable too.
I don't know why the book didn't move me more. I felt the same way about Pat Barker's WWI books - brilliant but ultimately cold to me.
By contrast, there were a few passages in Sebastian Faulks' 'Birdsong' that have stayed with me though I haven't read it for years.
Rusty -
Message 5
Posted by Jenny111 (U2912527) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
As per usual I am late in reading the book - I have it now and will start this evening. Sometimes it is quite interesting to read while looking at your comments - makes you look at things differently.
jx -
Message 6
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
I'm half-way through the book, and think (so far) that it is one of the best books I've read for a long time. The only reason I haven't finished it yet, is that I find I need to read it with a good couple of hours dedicated reading at each go - because it is so wonderfully written and I take my time to savour that, and also, some chapters run together - so a break comes when he has goes back to Ireland, or when he goes back to the front.
As several people are still reading this book, I guess there could be contributions later rather than earlier?
Anyway, just wanted to register my initial reaction.
There are all sorts of slight personal resonances too, such as OH's father working in Dublin Castle at that time, and also having spent a large chunk of my life in Belgium, so place names suddenly leap out of the page at me. -
Message 7
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
Hmmm. I wonder if I read the book too quickly - a bad habit of mine; not so bad when I am reading my "fast food equivalent" thrillers but not so good with more serious stuff.
Will read it again and see what I have been missing.
Rusty -
Message 8
Posted by barbara1835 (U10780912) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
I think this is a remarkable book, absolutely worthy to be included with all the very best literature to do with the First World War.
I found I was fully engaged with Willie; the pathos at the end when his father's letter of reconciliation comes just too late has a ring of inevitability and truth.
The author has a beautiful prose style, ....intelligent and thoughtful with occasional flashes of humour which pin-point the tragic events. He is a true novelist....interpreting life events in the context of an ordinary young man.
I have thought some of the books we have discussed were not worth the bother but I am full of admiraton for Sebastian Barry.
Barbara1835 -
Message 9
Posted by plum the depths (U5587356) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
I do indeed think this a worthy book and should be recommended to those studying the First World War. I will admit it might have been the way I read the book- over 4 weeks, a bit here a bit there - that might have contributed to my not engaging with Willie but on looking over my notes I have written, Willie becomes a ghost before he is dead.
Now to be honest I can't remember exactly why I wrote that except that he did not fit in anywhere.
He was to some extent discriminated against in the trenches, think of the way the officers treated him when he went to tell them about the loss of life after the mustard attack. He was shown no compassion or even regard. Then when he returns home for a break he is spat at and rocks are thrown at him, it really was a dreadful state of affairs.
But Willie shows very little emotion. He never rants or raves he just seems to accept his fate. When he returns home for the last time and his father is so appalling to him, he says not a word he just walks away.
I did not understand his character maybe this is why I could not feel all that he was experiencing, he seemed so remote.
Just remembering that bit when he visits his dead officers parents and he stands by the gravestone of Captain Pasley with Pasleys father and lays his hand on the older mans shoulder. That had a ghost like quality, the dead reaching out to the bereaved.
Just as an aside, I have to say that 5'6" for a man in the early 1900s is not that short. Barry keeps on referring to Willies height. At one point some one calls him a dwarf. I found that a tinge irritating. -
Message 10
Posted by lady glen (U10017481) on Sunday, 21st June 2009
I have never read Sebastian Barry before but will certainly read more as I really liked this book.
My initial feelings on picking this book up were that I did not feel that I wanted to read another book about WW1 but once I started reading I changed my mind.
I loved the way it was written and I felt that I did connect with the character of Willie and found the end heartbreaking.
This is the first time I have ever seen this War from an Irish viewpoint and it was an interesting slant to the story. -
Message 11
Posted by countrypug (U9227943) on Monday, 22nd June 2009
I've never joined in with the reading club thread before, but have just finished this book! I would so agree with honestacrossthepond - I found it very hard to get attached to Willie, although I found him a sympathetic character. In fact, I was reading the book thinking it odd how little I was connecting. I enjoyed the book very much, as I feel I know too little about WW1, and knew virtually nothing about the Irish situation.
I almost wondered if it was deliberately written to keep Willie almost at arms length from the reader, but obviously others have felt differently from me, so I'm now unsure.
As previous posters have said, the ending felt almost inevitable, although so sad (although unusually for me, I did not cry). I have not read any other Sebastian Barry, so will look out to see what else is around.
Pug -
Message 12
Posted by Bette (U2222559) on Monday, 22nd June 2009
Well, I finished the book today.
It remains a book that moved me very deeply, and I won't hesitate to recommend it to everyone.
I thought Barry's style of writing was simply astonishing. From the first few pages I found myself thinking 'How can /anyone/ have the imagination to write like this?' I found the novel beautifully constructed - absolutely gripping, and well-paced - the juxtaposition of Dublin-Front-Dublin-Front-Dublin-Front.
The rape of the poor Belgian woman was certainly horrifying, but the consequences rippled throughout the book thereafter.
I didn't cry - but then, I didn't when I watched 'World at War' (I and II),. The book went far beyond that.
I found that I felt for many of the people in this book - indeed, most of them! I'm not sure if we were /supposed/ to just to connect with Willie. I thought I was just depicted as an ordinary young man faced with unspeakable horrors. -
Message 13
Posted by Campbell-in-Clogs (U8123405) on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009
Just dropping in to say I'm not reading 'with' the group at the moment but have put this book on the vague list of 'things to read' I carry in my head. I usually read some WW1 stuff in and around November as I often go to Ieper around this time and read whilst tramping about the mud of Flanders with a dog. If I aquire this book by then I may come back to this thread. Thanks for the tip anyway.
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Message 14
Posted by catwomyn (U1485618) on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009
oh I loved it loved it loved it
first SB I have read, and his prose astonished me. Like Rusters I probably read it too quickly, I have that habit also. Must re-read. I found I engaged well with the character.
For whoever it was upthread that said it was the only Barry they'd read, well I'd hugely recommend The Secret Scripture also. I loved that as well.
Cat x -
Message 15
Posted by Rwth of the Cornovii (U2570790) on Thursday, 25th June 2009
Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:36 GMT, in reply to catwomyn in message 14
Bump everyone. It just arrived in today's post and I will read it tonight and post ASAP. It is due to rain tomorrow. See you later everyone. -
Message 16
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Saturday, 27th June 2009
Am off to the library later, so will get/reserve The Secret Scripture, Cat.
Rwth, looking forward to your views on A Long, Long Way, including what you thought of Willie.
Rusty -
Message 17
Posted by Rwth of the Cornovii (U2570790) on Saturday, 27th June 2009
Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:20 GMT, in reply to Rusters in message 16
I have just finished the book. I would tend to agree that one is not intended to engage all that closely with Willie. However, being older, and having known veterans of that war, I have experience of how people's minds worked. While their own lives were of course important to them, they were not cursed with the modern day selfishness that we have come to know. Way back then, you did not have to find your own job. Your parents would get one for you.
I have also recently read "The Last Fighting Tommy". The autobiography of Harry Patch. This novel is grimmer and a whole lot more political. In human terms, Willie is amazingly even handed about his allegiances. After the grim assault on Hanno Ridge? where Christy earns his medal, we are assured it is still only 1917 and there is still more than a year to go of the war. Willie is just doing his best to make his father proud of him. Although he is not particularly small, he knows that he has let him down already by not achieving 6' and becoming eligible for the Police Force.
I approached it too quickly and will not return to it in a hurry, but I am glad to have read it.
I don't think it matters that he never receives his father's letter. The letter is written as is the one he wrote to his father. Given the spiritual nature of the book, I feel that Willie knows his father has forgiven him. Also, the relationship with Christy Moran is wonderful. Not exactly a father figure, but a big brother figure, certainly. When Christy gives him the medal to look after, I don't quite see why Willie has earned it, but Christy thinks he has, so maybe he has, if only for being there, and coming back to fight again. The end is not inevitable, but not a surprise either, bearing in mind what the British Army has ahead of it in Ireland.
I suspected that O'Hara wrote the letter out of peevishness that he was infected and Willie wasn't. He just isn't a very nice character. On the other hand, Father Buckley is incredible. The Angel of Mons himself.
The spite of the British towards the Irish Troops is hard to countenance. Willie may have changed his opinion politically, but it makes no difference to his fighting of the war. He is a volunteer and does his best all the way to the end. He is 'lucky' in his many survivals to fight again in worse and worse conditions. I find it much more realistic than 'Birdsong' which is a very much more modern take on the period with modern attitudes. -
Message 18
Posted by Rusters (U11225963) on Sunday, 28th June 2009
Very interesting post, Rwth. I do take your point about modern attitudes as opposed of those in Willie's time, and I think it explains a lot. Shows, too, how much insight SB has into that period.
Rusty
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