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Η ώρα είναι δώδεκα το μεσημέρι και σε ένα μικρό χωριό της Ιρλανδίας ακούγεται η καμπάνα που χτυπά. Καθισμένος στο τραπέζι της κουζίνας, ο Μάρκους Κόνγουεϊ, πολιτικός μηχανικός, ξεκινά εκείνη ακριβώς τη στιγμή έναν νοερό απολογισμό της ζωής του, σκέφτεται το γάμο του, τα παιδιά του, τη δουλειά του, την πολιτική, σε μια χώρα που βρίσκεται στη δίνη της οικονομικής κρίσης. Ο απολογισμός αυτός κάθε άλλο παρά συγκροτημένος είναι· ακολουθεί τις υπόγειες και τυχαίες συνδέσεις που κυβερνούν τη μνήμη των ανθρώπων. Για μία ώρα ακριβώς, μέχρι να ακουστεί το σήμα των ειδήσεων στο ραδιόφωνο, ο απόηχος της καμπάνας γεννά στο νου του πολιτικού μηχανικού ένα αδιάκοπο τραγούδι, χωρίς τελείες, ερωτηματικά και θαυμαστικά: μια ελεγεία για το χάος της ζωής και τις καταδικασμένες προσπάθειές μας να το βάλουμε σε τάξη.
336 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2016
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January 29, 2023
this
this book
this book just
won the prestigious Goldsmiths Prize, given for innovation in the novel form, which is what impelled me to read it in the first place, and I sort of wish I had finished it prior to its winning, because now it will look like I am just being contrary that I really didn't like it since a lot of people did, although the main reason apparently that it won is that it is purportedly one long 223 page sentence, but
the only reason that is so is because the bloody author doesn't use proper punctuation especially eschewing periods where they actually belong, like during dialogue scenes where he just conveniently deletes them at the ends of lines, which really annoyed me, since
the lines just run on and on and on so that it is really hard to find a place to pause in one's reading, and I wasn't about to spend several hours slogging through mindnumbing repetitions in one sitting and as it was I had to constantly backtrack and re-read sections because by the time I got halfway through a thought I forgot what the hell I had been reading in the first place, although
that might have been intentional because on at least three occasions the protagonist talks about how he has been driving in a car and has gone several miles unconsciously without paying any attention to the roads and finds himself at his destination with not a clue how he got there and that is more or less how I felt reading this, which is why it took me six days to get through a relatively short book I should have been able to read in two, and also
the other noteworthy controversy about the book is that the back cover 'gives away' the fact that the protagonist, Marcus Conway, is actually dead, although we don't find that out till the final pages and whether that is something the reader should discover for themselves instead has been the subject of some discussion, but it doesn't really make a shite-load of difference, because aside from the fact that the beginning of the book takes place on All Souls Day and apparently Marcus has come back to ponder his dreary life, which is something I kind of had to piece together from the fact that the beginning of the book takes place in March and the ending in November, apparently of the year before, but
then the book skips around in Conway's mind and memory so that he IS actually alive during the vast majority of the book, and it's not like the revelation he is dead CHANGES things, a la Bruce Willis in 'The Sixth Sense', and it might have been more interesting to discover that Marcus was in actuality a squirrel, or maybe a raccoon, and because what he thinks about and talks about endlessly is less than fascinating anyway, unless
one is enthralled with long descriptions of taking apart tractors or the nauseating details of a cryptosporidium epidemic with all of the concomitant talk about vomit and diarrhea, or the scintillating tension derived from whether Marcus is going to sign off on the foundation of a public building for which he is the managing engineer, that has had three different pours of concrete, so that when winter comes the foundation might crack and we get about twenty pages on that whole mess, because it is important to include one major painfully obvious symbolic metaphor, because the author is Irish after all and wants us to know he's read his Joyce and Beckett, and we get as well
the details of his daughter's kooky art installations, which were at least of minor interest to me, although not much is made of those anyway, so that you are left just going around in circles attempting to derive any importance to any of this, but then maybe it's me and I am just not clever enough to figure out the point of going on and on until, like Marcus himself I just wanted to say
'stop
for the love of Jesus
stop talking
getting carried away like this on
tidal waves of nonsense'
this book
this book just
won the prestigious Goldsmiths Prize, given for innovation in the novel form, which is what impelled me to read it in the first place, and I sort of wish I had finished it prior to its winning, because now it will look like I am just being contrary that I really didn't like it since a lot of people did, although the main reason apparently that it won is that it is purportedly one long 223 page sentence, but
the only reason that is so is because the bloody author doesn't use proper punctuation especially eschewing periods where they actually belong, like during dialogue scenes where he just conveniently deletes them at the ends of lines, which really annoyed me, since
the lines just run on and on and on so that it is really hard to find a place to pause in one's reading, and I wasn't about to spend several hours slogging through mindnumbing repetitions in one sitting and as it was I had to constantly backtrack and re-read sections because by the time I got halfway through a thought I forgot what the hell I had been reading in the first place, although
that might have been intentional because on at least three occasions the protagonist talks about how he has been driving in a car and has gone several miles unconsciously without paying any attention to the roads and finds himself at his destination with not a clue how he got there and that is more or less how I felt reading this, which is why it took me six days to get through a relatively short book I should have been able to read in two, and also
the other noteworthy controversy about the book is that the back cover 'gives away' the fact that the protagonist, Marcus Conway, is actually dead, although we don't find that out till the final pages and whether that is something the reader should discover for themselves instead has been the subject of some discussion, but it doesn't really make a shite-load of difference, because aside from the fact that the beginning of the book takes place on All Souls Day and apparently Marcus has come back to ponder his dreary life, which is something I kind of had to piece together from the fact that the beginning of the book takes place in March and the ending in November, apparently of the year before, but
then the book skips around in Conway's mind and memory so that he IS actually alive during the vast majority of the book, and it's not like the revelation he is dead CHANGES things, a la Bruce Willis in 'The Sixth Sense', and it might have been more interesting to discover that Marcus was in actuality a squirrel, or maybe a raccoon, and because what he thinks about and talks about endlessly is less than fascinating anyway, unless
one is enthralled with long descriptions of taking apart tractors or the nauseating details of a cryptosporidium epidemic with all of the concomitant talk about vomit and diarrhea, or the scintillating tension derived from whether Marcus is going to sign off on the foundation of a public building for which he is the managing engineer, that has had three different pours of concrete, so that when winter comes the foundation might crack and we get about twenty pages on that whole mess, because it is important to include one major painfully obvious symbolic metaphor, because the author is Irish after all and wants us to know he's read his Joyce and Beckett, and we get as well
the details of his daughter's kooky art installations, which were at least of minor interest to me, although not much is made of those anyway, so that you are left just going around in circles attempting to derive any importance to any of this, but then maybe it's me and I am just not clever enough to figure out the point of going on and on until, like Marcus himself I just wanted to say
'stop
for the love of Jesus
stop talking
getting carried away like this on
tidal waves of nonsense'
July 27, 2022
INGEGNERIA ESISTENZIALE
Westport, nella contea di Mayo, dove è ambientato il romanzo.
era un giorno per le grandi domande
la vita, l’universo , cazzi e mazzi
Duecentoquarantedue pagine senza un punto fermo, neppure alla fine, neppure all’ultima, due punti, virgole, e un sapiente uso dell’accapo, regalano gioia e rivoluzione, regalano quello che si usa chiamare flusso di coscienza, un unico discorso ininterrotto, una lunga singola frase, un’onda sonora, un ruminare, avanzare e ritornare della memoria che tocca i punti cardinali della vita di un uomo, il pensiero e il rimescolio del protagonista, cinquantenne seduto nella cucina di casa di un due novembre, e cioè il giorno in cui si commemorano i morti, che come qui si apprende sanno commemorarsi anche da soli, racconto che s’avvia intorno al mezzodì, con quattro ore davanti da riempire prima che faccia ritorno da scuola sua moglie, i figli grandi occupati e affaccendati, lei Agnes artista visuale, lui Darragh raccoglitore di frutta in Australia, ormai abitano un qualche loro altrove, il pensiero di Marcus Conway corre qua e là, da quando aveva nove anni e suo padre era un dio a smontare motori, il suo dio personale, prima di restare vedovo e perdere il senno, alla crisi economica del suo paese, e anche
la fatica di scegliere il punto giusto della pagina dove fermarsi, spezzare e interrompere la lettura per poi poterla riprendere senza intoppo, ma siccome McCormack si giostra bene nella sua punteggiatura, e anche nella sua assenza, assenza del punto fermo intendo, leggere questo romanzo è proprio quello che ho già detto prima, gioia e rivoluzione, gioia per esprimere il mio piacere e lo stupore e la mia meraviglia, rivoluzione perché per quanto non sia certo la prima volta, leggere un libro scritto così è una botta di vita, spalanca davanti baratri e montagne da esplorare, esplorazione protetta dal talento di chi scrive, e io potrei andare avanti così ma che senso avrebbe, me lo chiedo, e abbandono per tornare ai punti fermi che a me piacciono almeno altrettanto di quanto mi piace farne a meno.
Nel 1989 è crollato il muro di Berlino. Quello di Belfast è ancora in piedi.
la mente a riposo si srotola all’infinito, cede a queste ridicole meditazioni che troppo facilmente scambiamo per pensieri, queste associazioni sciolte, echi mentali in cui risuona la nostra ansia di stare svegli e vigili sul mondo o perlomeno attenti a quante più delle sue circostanze sappiamo cogliere
Sì, certo, McCormack è irlandese (d’adozione) e il suo stream of consciousness fa subito pensare al suo celebre conterraneo Joyce, che però i punti li usava, e qui non serve proprio corredo di note e spiegazioni.
Alasdair Gray: Cowcaddens Streetscape in the Fifties, 1964.
Mi è difficile dire se il monologo di Marcus prenda spunto da fatti privati o pubblici, tanto è tutto parte uno dell’altro: i fatti pubblici, essendo lui un ingegnere che lavora nell’ufficio della contea (di Mayo, a nordovest dell’Irlanda, spalmata sulla costa atlantica di Galway, che è dove io mi fermai), sono tanti, dalle tre colate di calcestruzzo che saranno le fondamenta della nuova scuola, ma che essendo composte da tre calcestruzzi diversi saranno fondamenta poco stabili, alle telefonate dei politici che per mantenere il proprio elettorato interferiscono in materia tecnica come l’ingegneria, costituiscono un rovello nel fluire del discorso di Marcus.
William Blake: The House of Death (1795 – 1805). Tate Gallery, Londra.
E sono intrecciati e intervallati con fatti e ricordi intimi, il cui fondamento si potrebbe definire la magnifica storia d’amore con la moglie Mairead durata un quarto di secolo che ha generato prima lei, la figlia Agnes, che dipinge usando il proprio sangue, poi lui, il figlio Darragh, che sta viaggiando il mondo, e si ferma a lungo in Australia a lavorare come bracciante, e quasi ogni sera parla con casa via skype.
”Sunset Boulevard” di Billy Wilder, 1950. William Holden galleggia morto sull’acqua della piscina e inizia a raccontare con voce fuori campo (v.o.)
Sembra dominare l’ansia dell’ingegnere che sa che sbagliando calcoli si rischia il crollo. In fondo il mondo è uno sgangherato prodotto di componenti casuali avvitati insieme alla cieca, una costruzione che ronza vicino al crollo, al punto che per scardinare cielo e terra sarebbe bastato sfilare un solo ma essenziale perno.
Ma il rischio di collasso è mitigato dalla bellezza: la bellezza dell’amore, per esempio, ma anche della natura (che in quella parte d’Europa raggiunge vette elevate). Il mondo e la vita sanno trovare la loro armonia coniugando ordine e disordine, pragmatismo ed estetica, prosa e poesia, conscio e inconscio, io noi e loro.
Cimitero irlandese
Nel procedere di questa narrazione inarrestabile, a tratti lirica, apocalittica, mistica e prosaica – l’ultima parola è “vaffanculo” – Marcus/McCormack racconta una vita per nulla speciale e allo stesso tempo la straordinarietà dell’umano, quella facoltà che ci rende speciali e ci permette di andare oltre la dimensione fisica della nostra esistenza.
PS
Mi unisco al coro generale di lode e applauso alla traduzione di Luca Fornari.
PPSS
E vorrei innalzare un mio personale peana a McCormack per quanto si tenga lontano dalla narrativa irlandese che io conosco, così perennemente ripiegata su se stessa, martellante sullo stesso punto e tono.
L'Angelus di Jean-François Millet. 1858-59. Museo d'Orsay, Parigi. L’angelus è una preghiera cattolica che viene recitata all’alba, a mezzogiorno e al tramonto. Quando inizia il flusso di pensieri, e racconto, di Marcus Conway stanno suonando le campane della seconda preghiera, quella del mezzodì.
Westport, nella contea di Mayo, dove è ambientato il romanzo.
era un giorno per le grandi domande
la vita, l’universo , cazzi e mazzi
Duecentoquarantedue pagine senza un punto fermo, neppure alla fine, neppure all’ultima, due punti, virgole, e un sapiente uso dell’accapo, regalano gioia e rivoluzione, regalano quello che si usa chiamare flusso di coscienza, un unico discorso ininterrotto, una lunga singola frase, un’onda sonora, un ruminare, avanzare e ritornare della memoria che tocca i punti cardinali della vita di un uomo, il pensiero e il rimescolio del protagonista, cinquantenne seduto nella cucina di casa di un due novembre, e cioè il giorno in cui si commemorano i morti, che come qui si apprende sanno commemorarsi anche da soli, racconto che s’avvia intorno al mezzodì, con quattro ore davanti da riempire prima che faccia ritorno da scuola sua moglie, i figli grandi occupati e affaccendati, lei Agnes artista visuale, lui Darragh raccoglitore di frutta in Australia, ormai abitano un qualche loro altrove, il pensiero di Marcus Conway corre qua e là, da quando aveva nove anni e suo padre era un dio a smontare motori, il suo dio personale, prima di restare vedovo e perdere il senno, alla crisi economica del suo paese, e anche
la fatica di scegliere il punto giusto della pagina dove fermarsi, spezzare e interrompere la lettura per poi poterla riprendere senza intoppo, ma siccome McCormack si giostra bene nella sua punteggiatura, e anche nella sua assenza, assenza del punto fermo intendo, leggere questo romanzo è proprio quello che ho già detto prima, gioia e rivoluzione, gioia per esprimere il mio piacere e lo stupore e la mia meraviglia, rivoluzione perché per quanto non sia certo la prima volta, leggere un libro scritto così è una botta di vita, spalanca davanti baratri e montagne da esplorare, esplorazione protetta dal talento di chi scrive, e io potrei andare avanti così ma che senso avrebbe, me lo chiedo, e abbandono per tornare ai punti fermi che a me piacciono almeno altrettanto di quanto mi piace farne a meno.
Nel 1989 è crollato il muro di Berlino. Quello di Belfast è ancora in piedi.
la mente a riposo si srotola all’infinito, cede a queste ridicole meditazioni che troppo facilmente scambiamo per pensieri, queste associazioni sciolte, echi mentali in cui risuona la nostra ansia di stare svegli e vigili sul mondo o perlomeno attenti a quante più delle sue circostanze sappiamo cogliere
Sì, certo, McCormack è irlandese (d’adozione) e il suo stream of consciousness fa subito pensare al suo celebre conterraneo Joyce, che però i punti li usava, e qui non serve proprio corredo di note e spiegazioni.
Alasdair Gray: Cowcaddens Streetscape in the Fifties, 1964.
Mi è difficile dire se il monologo di Marcus prenda spunto da fatti privati o pubblici, tanto è tutto parte uno dell’altro: i fatti pubblici, essendo lui un ingegnere che lavora nell’ufficio della contea (di Mayo, a nordovest dell’Irlanda, spalmata sulla costa atlantica di Galway, che è dove io mi fermai), sono tanti, dalle tre colate di calcestruzzo che saranno le fondamenta della nuova scuola, ma che essendo composte da tre calcestruzzi diversi saranno fondamenta poco stabili, alle telefonate dei politici che per mantenere il proprio elettorato interferiscono in materia tecnica come l’ingegneria, costituiscono un rovello nel fluire del discorso di Marcus.
William Blake: The House of Death (1795 – 1805). Tate Gallery, Londra.
E sono intrecciati e intervallati con fatti e ricordi intimi, il cui fondamento si potrebbe definire la magnifica storia d’amore con la moglie Mairead durata un quarto di secolo che ha generato prima lei, la figlia Agnes, che dipinge usando il proprio sangue, poi lui, il figlio Darragh, che sta viaggiando il mondo, e si ferma a lungo in Australia a lavorare come bracciante, e quasi ogni sera parla con casa via skype.
”Sunset Boulevard” di Billy Wilder, 1950. William Holden galleggia morto sull’acqua della piscina e inizia a raccontare con voce fuori campo (v.o.)
Sembra dominare l’ansia dell’ingegnere che sa che sbagliando calcoli si rischia il crollo. In fondo il mondo è uno sgangherato prodotto di componenti casuali avvitati insieme alla cieca, una costruzione che ronza vicino al crollo, al punto che per scardinare cielo e terra sarebbe bastato sfilare un solo ma essenziale perno.
Ma il rischio di collasso è mitigato dalla bellezza: la bellezza dell’amore, per esempio, ma anche della natura (che in quella parte d’Europa raggiunge vette elevate). Il mondo e la vita sanno trovare la loro armonia coniugando ordine e disordine, pragmatismo ed estetica, prosa e poesia, conscio e inconscio, io noi e loro.
Cimitero irlandese
Nel procedere di questa narrazione inarrestabile, a tratti lirica, apocalittica, mistica e prosaica – l’ultima parola è “vaffanculo” – Marcus/McCormack racconta una vita per nulla speciale e allo stesso tempo la straordinarietà dell’umano, quella facoltà che ci rende speciali e ci permette di andare oltre la dimensione fisica della nostra esistenza.
PS
Mi unisco al coro generale di lode e applauso alla traduzione di Luca Fornari.
PPSS
E vorrei innalzare un mio personale peana a McCormack per quanto si tenga lontano dalla narrativa irlandese che io conosco, così perennemente ripiegata su se stessa, martellante sullo stesso punto e tono.
L'Angelus di Jean-François Millet. 1858-59. Museo d'Orsay, Parigi. L’angelus è una preghiera cattolica che viene recitata all’alba, a mezzogiorno e al tramonto. Quando inizia il flusso di pensieri, e racconto, di Marcus Conway stanno suonando le campane della seconda preghiera, quella del mezzodì.
September 13, 2017
Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.
April 10, 2021
Winner of the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award, winner of the 2016 Goldsmith Prize, and the 2017 Booker nominee, Solar Bones is a stunning and beautifully written novel.
Set in a small Irish town, Marcus Conway sits at his kitchen table on All Souls’ Day and reminisces about his life. Thru a stream of consciousness, he reflects on every day life ranging from his work as a civil engineer to politics and the economics of earlier and present times. He is an ordinary and moral man with a loving wife and two children that he remembers well. Marcus’ thoughts go back and forth from his wife’s current illness due to a county epidemic to their earlier years together. He reflects emotionally on what his children were like when they were young to where they are now as adults.
All of this is done in one long sentence with exceptional prose that flows so beautifully it is mesmerizing to the reader. As I listened to the audiobook, I had no concerns as some did with reading one sentence. The novel’s structure was poetic to one listening. Tim Reynolds narration was so lovely.
I will be reading more of Mike McCormack’s work.
A heart-felt 5 out of 5 stars
Set in a small Irish town, Marcus Conway sits at his kitchen table on All Souls’ Day and reminisces about his life. Thru a stream of consciousness, he reflects on every day life ranging from his work as a civil engineer to politics and the economics of earlier and present times. He is an ordinary and moral man with a loving wife and two children that he remembers well. Marcus’ thoughts go back and forth from his wife’s current illness due to a county epidemic to their earlier years together. He reflects emotionally on what his children were like when they were young to where they are now as adults.
All of this is done in one long sentence with exceptional prose that flows so beautifully it is mesmerizing to the reader. As I listened to the audiobook, I had no concerns as some did with reading one sentence. The novel’s structure was poetic to one listening. Tim Reynolds narration was so lovely.
I will be reading more of Mike McCormack’s work.
A heart-felt 5 out of 5 stars
August 24, 2017
After you get used to the writing style of this novel—it's technically all one sentence, no full stops—it's quite a beautiful read. It's told from the perspective of one man on a single afternoon as he reflects on his life, his marriage & children, his work, politics, and a lot of other big topics. But it's a very human novel. I admired it's ability to take philosophical views and ground them in one person's experience; it became very relatable and moving. I think this novel deserves a re-read because the first twenty pages I was so focused on adjusting to how it's written that I don't think I gleaned everything that I was supposed to from the text, but fortunately it's not a long read and one that you can get lost in. So maybe someday I will return to it again. Definitely high on the list of favorites for this year's Man Booker Prize!
August 29, 2017
Wonderfully and intricately structured in a way that demanded my full attention this is a portrait of a man's life told in a single contemplative hour. Mike McCormack tells his story in a single sentence without proper punctuations and in places bending the rules of grammar to the limit - and it works absolutely beautifully. This lends the prose an immediacy and a poignancy that mesmerized me. This quiet novel tells of a quiet man - an engineer thinking about his life and the things important to him: his wife and two children; but also meditating on other things, politics, finance, art, the importance of ritual, and many things more. The flow is disjointed, jumping between times and topics and the result is a portrait of a man that feels complete but at the same time as if there could be so much more to him then even meets his inner eye.
I went into this book only knowing of its structure and nothing about its plot - and I am glad I did. I loved discovering more and more of the man Marcus Conway is and how he became that way.
This quiet but impactful little novel took me completely by surprise with how unpretentious it felt while reading and how much I enjoyed reading it (let's be honest here: it could have been a pretentious mess in hands less talented). I am so very glad the book is longlisted for the Man Booker Prize because I don't know if I had read it otherwise.
Normally I would now give you the first sentence. But given that the first sentence is also the only sentence I will end this review with one of my favourite passages that just glows with the love Marcus has for his wife:
I went into this book only knowing of its structure and nothing about its plot - and I am glad I did. I loved discovering more and more of the man Marcus Conway is and how he became that way.
This quiet but impactful little novel took me completely by surprise with how unpretentious it felt while reading and how much I enjoyed reading it (let's be honest here: it could have been a pretentious mess in hands less talented). I am so very glad the book is longlisted for the Man Booker Prize because I don't know if I had read it otherwise.
Normally I would now give you the first sentence. But given that the first sentence is also the only sentence I will end this review with one of my favourite passages that just glows with the love Marcus has for his wife:
coming upon her unawares like that, my wife of twenty-five years sitting in profile with her hair swept to her shoulder and her crooked way of holding her head whenever she was listening intently or concentrating, I saw that
a whole person and their life
cohered clearly around these few details and how, if ever his woman had to be remade, the world could start with the light and line of this pose which was so characteristic of her whole being, drawing down out of the ether her configuration, her structure and alignment, all the lines and contours which make her up as the women she was on that day
August 11, 2017
I had already bought a copy of this book before the Booker longlist was announced, because it won the Goldsmiths Prize and was well received by reviewers whose opinions I trust.
The whole book is a single sentence monologue, which tells quite a conventional story of a mid-life crisis but is rather more interesting than that would suggest, since the topics it covers are wide-ranging and universal. The narrator is a middle-aged engineer, who works for a local council in Mayo. I was aware that there was some discussion last year about an apparent spoiler on the cover of the Irish original, which does not appear on the UK Canongate edition, . Apparently the author intended the reader to be aware of this, and there are certainly plenty of hints, not least in the opening.
Given its unconventional structure, the book is surprisingly easy to read, and despite the lack of full stops there are plenty of line breaks, either to indicate reported speech or to suggest possible break points. The competition is such that I think this one is unlikely to win this year's prize, but it was an interesting one to read.
The whole book is a single sentence monologue, which tells quite a conventional story of a mid-life crisis but is rather more interesting than that would suggest, since the topics it covers are wide-ranging and universal. The narrator is a middle-aged engineer, who works for a local council in Mayo. I was aware that there was some discussion last year about an apparent spoiler on the cover of the Irish original, which does not appear on the UK Canongate edition, . Apparently the author intended the reader to be aware of this, and there are certainly plenty of hints, not least in the opening.
Given its unconventional structure, the book is surprisingly easy to read, and despite the lack of full stops there are plenty of line breaks, either to indicate reported speech or to suggest possible break points. The competition is such that I think this one is unlikely to win this year's prize, but it was an interesting one to read.
October 31, 2021
3 "much to admire but only kinda liked" stars !!!
First of all a big thanks to Lee M. who recommended this book to me. I know he carefully considers which books to recommend to me and I am glad he did this one (remember three stars is a good book to me !)
This book has won and been nominated for a number of awards and I can understand why. The book is written in an open stream of consciousness way with no periods but lots of commas. It carefully delves into the inner life of a middle class middle aged Irish bloke who happens to be decent, caring and psychologically insightful about his history, his life, his family, his work and his developed intellectual and spiritual life. These are all interesting and wonderful things !!
Yet, I cannot say, that I always looked forward to reading it. I can not quite put my finger on why this is. I think I craved more inner conflict or perhaps a bit more quirkiness of character.
A book well worth reading to understand some unconventional prose for a fairly conventional character !!
First of all a big thanks to Lee M. who recommended this book to me. I know he carefully considers which books to recommend to me and I am glad he did this one (remember three stars is a good book to me !)
This book has won and been nominated for a number of awards and I can understand why. The book is written in an open stream of consciousness way with no periods but lots of commas. It carefully delves into the inner life of a middle class middle aged Irish bloke who happens to be decent, caring and psychologically insightful about his history, his life, his family, his work and his developed intellectual and spiritual life. These are all interesting and wonderful things !!
Yet, I cannot say, that I always looked forward to reading it. I can not quite put my finger on why this is. I think I craved more inner conflict or perhaps a bit more quirkiness of character.
A book well worth reading to understand some unconventional prose for a fairly conventional character !!
August 15, 2018
Exceptional, stellar writing in this little gem, but the structure makes it a bit of a chore to read.
Marcus Conway reflects on his life in the kitchen of his house in Mayo, Ireland on All Soul’s Day. His reflections are represented in a stream of consciousness, which is basically one long, lovely, and remarkable sentence. Just as we do in our own reminiscing, one thing leads to another and Marcus’ memories progress in leaps and bounds across time and space, covering his entire life and all of his relationships. This is a book you need to settle into and find the rhythm and let it carry you along. It’s a tough read if you are inclined (as I was) to put it down and pick it up later.
I can’t emphasize enough the beauty and power of McCormack’s writing. It’s almost poetry.
Lovely, poignant, insightful and very real. I loved it but the format was challenging for me. Definitely worthy of being a Booker longlist choice in 2017.
Marcus Conway reflects on his life in the kitchen of his house in Mayo, Ireland on All Soul’s Day. His reflections are represented in a stream of consciousness, which is basically one long, lovely, and remarkable sentence. Just as we do in our own reminiscing, one thing leads to another and Marcus’ memories progress in leaps and bounds across time and space, covering his entire life and all of his relationships. This is a book you need to settle into and find the rhythm and let it carry you along. It’s a tough read if you are inclined (as I was) to put it down and pick it up later.
I can’t emphasize enough the beauty and power of McCormack’s writing. It’s almost poetry.
Lovely, poignant, insightful and very real. I loved it but the format was challenging for me. Definitely worthy of being a Booker longlist choice in 2017.
November 6, 2016
How appropriate that the narrator of Solar Bones is an engineer. This novel is quite the feat of engineering itself, written in a stream of consciousness with no full-stops and only the odd comma to punctuate the flow of thoughts. This might sound like a showy literary gimmick but it works brilliantly and I can see why the book has been nominated for the Goldsmiths Prize, an award which seeks to promote fiction that breaks the mould.
Set in a small Irish town on All Souls Day, Marcus Conway sits at his kitchen table, reminiscing about the events that have brought him to this point. Happily married with two grown-up children and a successful career, he should be content but all he feels is a piercing sadness, "a crying sense of loneliness" for his family. His thoughts drift as he waits for them to return, from caring for his wife during her recent illness, to his son's backpacker journey across Australia, to his daughter's recent provocative art exhibition. Pressure from his job gnaws at him, the recollections of dealings with corrupt politicians and impatient builders adding to his unease. If only he could see the faces of his loved ones, he would immediately feel better:
This powerful novel is a composite of so many things: an affectionate depiction of rural existence, a tender portrait of family life, a frustrated state of the nation address. For me it excels in the quiet moments where McCormack finds beauty in the mundane, such as a treasured bread knife that has become blunt from years of use: "I love that we are living the kind of life where things are wearing down around us." A revelation in the final pages makes the story all the more poignant (but be forewarned that this twist is spoiled by the blurb). Solar Bones is a major achievement, a daring experiment that pushes the boundaries of what a novel can be. Bravo, Mike McCormack.
Set in a small Irish town on All Souls Day, Marcus Conway sits at his kitchen table, reminiscing about the events that have brought him to this point. Happily married with two grown-up children and a successful career, he should be content but all he feels is a piercing sadness, "a crying sense of loneliness" for his family. His thoughts drift as he waits for them to return, from caring for his wife during her recent illness, to his son's backpacker journey across Australia, to his daughter's recent provocative art exhibition. Pressure from his job gnaws at him, the recollections of dealings with corrupt politicians and impatient builders adding to his unease. If only he could see the faces of his loved ones, he would immediately feel better:
"something in me would be soothed now if, at this moment, Mairead or one of the kids were to walk through the door and smile or say hello to me, something in me would be calmed by this, a word or a smile or a glance from my wife or children, to find myself in their gaze and know that I was beheld then, this would be something to believe in, another of these articles of faith that seem so important today, a look or a word, enough to hang a whole life on"
This powerful novel is a composite of so many things: an affectionate depiction of rural existence, a tender portrait of family life, a frustrated state of the nation address. For me it excels in the quiet moments where McCormack finds beauty in the mundane, such as a treasured bread knife that has become blunt from years of use: "I love that we are living the kind of life where things are wearing down around us." A revelation in the final pages makes the story all the more poignant (but be forewarned that this twist is spoiled by the blurb). Solar Bones is a major achievement, a daring experiment that pushes the boundaries of what a novel can be. Bravo, Mike McCormack.
September 12, 2017
I wanted to read this book when I read its description; I don't think I would have pushed through to the end if it hadn't been on the Man Booker Prize Long List.
To me, it suffers from what many experimental novels do - too much experiment with no clear purpose. I have read many stream of consciousness works. Most memorable to me (and the least known) is the first chapter of Narcopolis, something I probably could have read for the entire work but the author decided to step back from it and just write the novel after doing it for about 7 pages. How I wish Mike McCormack had made a similar decision!
When you don't have sentences that end and you don't use dialogue markings, you don't give your narrator a chance to take a breath. It may not seem like the narrator needs one, but actually, he or she does. See how I created breaths in the previous sentence by just adding commas? It's funny that my previous review is of a book about radio storytelling, because she has an entire section on signposts and how important they are to a listener. By creating a space to stop and think, to ponder, to absorb a difficult concept, you are engaging the listener. You are asking them to come with you on your journey. When you don't do that, then you are saying you don't give a shit and they're either going to follow you or you will leave them behind.
That is unfortunate, because I think there are some beautiful moments in the prose. But I never felt like I could stop and be with them for a moment or make a note of them because the narrator was still incessantly droning on! There is an overarching structure of sorts that is spoiled by other reviews so don't read them but by the time I reached the end I'd forgotten the beginning because anything important I thought I'd read was taken over by artistic protests and pages and pages of sickness and vomit.
So clearly this is not my style. I'm feeling put out at put myself through it. Depending on the mindset of this year's Man Booker judges, this one might make the shortlist because sometimes experiment is valued above other things. It does have some strange parallels to another title on the longlist - Reservoir 13, in fact I could see the events occurring at the same time, in a strange way.
tl; dr - Solar Bones - most anticipated, ultimately unfulfilling.
I was provided a copy by the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review, based on my request.
To me, it suffers from what many experimental novels do - too much experiment with no clear purpose. I have read many stream of consciousness works. Most memorable to me (and the least known) is the first chapter of Narcopolis, something I probably could have read for the entire work but the author decided to step back from it and just write the novel after doing it for about 7 pages. How I wish Mike McCormack had made a similar decision!
When you don't have sentences that end and you don't use dialogue markings, you don't give your narrator a chance to take a breath. It may not seem like the narrator needs one, but actually, he or she does. See how I created breaths in the previous sentence by just adding commas? It's funny that my previous review is of a book about radio storytelling, because she has an entire section on signposts and how important they are to a listener. By creating a space to stop and think, to ponder, to absorb a difficult concept, you are engaging the listener. You are asking them to come with you on your journey. When you don't do that, then you are saying you don't give a shit and they're either going to follow you or you will leave them behind.
That is unfortunate, because I think there are some beautiful moments in the prose. But I never felt like I could stop and be with them for a moment or make a note of them because the narrator was still incessantly droning on! There is an overarching structure of sorts that is spoiled by other reviews so don't read them but by the time I reached the end I'd forgotten the beginning because anything important I thought I'd read was taken over by artistic protests and pages and pages of sickness and vomit.
So clearly this is not my style. I'm feeling put out at put myself through it. Depending on the mindset of this year's Man Booker judges, this one might make the shortlist because sometimes experiment is valued above other things. It does have some strange parallels to another title on the longlist - Reservoir 13, in fact I could see the events occurring at the same time, in a strange way.
tl; dr - Solar Bones - most anticipated, ultimately unfulfilling.
I was provided a copy by the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review, based on my request.
September 26, 2023
Now deservedly the winner of the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award.
I first read this book when it was shortlisted for the 2016 Goldsmith Prize, an award it deservedly went on to win. My original review is at the end of this review.
At the time there were two side issues that caused some debate
A) Had it been overlooked for the Booker or was it in fact not eligible
B) Why was a major plot revelation included on the back cover blurb (see below) and not either included in the book or omitted entirely.
At a reading by all the Goldsmith author's it came up that the book was not eligible for the Booker as it had not actually been published in the U.K.
A brief chat with the author at the drinks afterwards confirmed that the statement that the book's narrator is unknowingly dead was deliberately placed in the blurb so as to place the reader in a greater state of awareness than the narrator, and that as the book is in the first person the author did not think it should be placed in the text.
The book has now been published in the UK and made the 2017 Booker longlist as a result, but with Marcus's death no longer mentioned on the back.
I have just re read the book as part of my longlist read through. Overall I enjoyed the book as much if not more the second time around.
This time I particularly enjoyed looking for the clues scattered through the text about Marcus being dead, and his own occasional awareness that something is not quite right.
I also enjoyed the hints as to the reason for his death
And picking out Marcus's own anger and short temper: against the interference of politicians, the opportunism unscrupulous contractors, the media coverage of the water poisoning, his sister and father, his daughter's exhibition. Although on the day of his death, he is remarkably happy and almost euphoric (despite catching a newspaper back page on the tragedy of Barcelona's reclamation of Fabregas).
Other themes and motives I enjoyed were:
- How Marcus relates the world to his engineering background and predilection, so that for example the Roman Catholic catechism has the whole world built up from first principle, towering and rigid as any structural engineer might wish, each line following necessarily from the previous one to link heaven and earth step by stepand how it is clear that for him engineering is subconsciously a way to make sense of the world and impose order on it, and to counter his natural tendencies to anxiety and apocalyptical dread, tendencies exacerbated by the financial crash and by the water contamination outbreak, but tendencies he also decries in his two children in their reaction to the latter.
- The perspective on being a father both of young children and of growing children starting to make their own way in life, as well as on being successfully married for many years.
Finally he clearly thinks actuaries are well dressed as seeing his artist daughter in a sensible coat he remarks that she looks so sharp that has she been someone else I would not have been surprised to hear that she worked in some sort of financial services job, insurance or something, some career where the value of the present moment is wagered against some unknowable future
Hugely recommended.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
The book is set on November 2nd 2009 (one day after All Souls Day and one year after the Irish financial crisis) and is narrated by a 49 year old civil engineer (Marcus) who works for a local council in County Mayo and lives in a small village with his teacher wife and two children – Agnes a conceptual artist (whose first exhibition is extracts from small court cases written in her own blood) and Darragh who is backpacking and fruit picking in Australia and whose unwillingness to engage in a career frustrates Marcus.
The subject matter of the book is largely conventional – its style anything but.
From the blurb we intentionally (on the author’s behalf) learn what Marcus only realises as the story ends – that he died of a heart attack around 8 months previously.
Further the book is written in a single, almost unpunctuated, sentence of Marcus thoughts roaming back and forth in time and with paragraph breaks commonly midsentence after “extension/joining” words. The book is though very easy to read and reproduces well the idea of someone’s thoughts flitting from subject to subject, picking up on and drawing out associations and memories. The book mainly explores the family’s past and recent history (including a severe food water contamination bug which strikes his wife) and Marcus’ job and interactions with the local pork barrel politics.
Generally a really excellent book – perhaps drifting a little in the middle, but uniquely capturing a normal life in an innovative way which is at the same time immediately natural and realistic.
I first read this book when it was shortlisted for the 2016 Goldsmith Prize, an award it deservedly went on to win. My original review is at the end of this review.
At the time there were two side issues that caused some debate
A) Had it been overlooked for the Booker or was it in fact not eligible
B) Why was a major plot revelation included on the back cover blurb (see below) and not either included in the book or omitted entirely.
At a reading by all the Goldsmith author's it came up that the book was not eligible for the Booker as it had not actually been published in the U.K.
A brief chat with the author at the drinks afterwards confirmed that the statement that the book's narrator is unknowingly dead was deliberately placed in the blurb so as to place the reader in a greater state of awareness than the narrator, and that as the book is in the first person the author did not think it should be placed in the text.
The book has now been published in the UK and made the 2017 Booker longlist as a result, but with Marcus's death no longer mentioned on the back.
I have just re read the book as part of my longlist read through. Overall I enjoyed the book as much if not more the second time around.
This time I particularly enjoyed looking for the clues scattered through the text about Marcus being dead, and his own occasional awareness that something is not quite right.
there is something strange about all this, some twitchy energy in the ether which has affected me from the moment those bells began to toll
why these thoughts [about death notices and burials] today, the whole world in shadow, everything undercut and in its own delirium, the light superimposed on itself so that all things are out of synch and kilter, things as themselves but slightly different from themselves also, every edge and outline blurred or warped and each passing moment belated, lagging a single beat behind its proper measure, the here and now beside itself, slightly off by a degree as in a kind of waking dream in which all things come adrift in their own anxiety so that sitting here now fills me with a crying sense of loneliness for my family ... their absence sweeping through me like ashes.
These grey days after Samhain when the souls of the dead are bailed from purgatory for a while by the prayer of the faithful so that they can return to their homes and the light is awash with ghosts and ghouls and the meaning between this world and the next is so blurred we might easily find ourselves under to shoulder with the dead, the world fuller than at any other time of the year,as if some form of spiritual sediment had been stirred up
this day has done nothing but drive me desperate into a grating dread which seems so determined to conceal its proper cause and which is all the more worrying since ther is no doubt whatsoever of its reality or that it is underwritten in some imminent catastrophe
nothing coming through at all but the certainty of being wholly displaced here in this house, my own house, and the uncanny feeling of dragging my own after-image with me like an intermittent being, strobing and flickering
I also enjoyed the hints as to the reason for his death
my line traceable to the gloomy prehistory in which a tenacious clan of farmers and fisherman kept their grip on a small patch of land .... men with bellies and short tempers, half of whom went to heir graves with pains in their chests before they were sixty
And picking out Marcus's own anger and short temper: against the interference of politicians, the opportunism unscrupulous contractors, the media coverage of the water poisoning, his sister and father, his daughter's exhibition. Although on the day of his death, he is remarkably happy and almost euphoric (despite catching a newspaper back page on the tragedy of Barcelona's reclamation of Fabregas).
Other themes and motives I enjoyed were:
- How Marcus relates the world to his engineering background and predilection, so that for example the Roman Catholic catechism has the whole world built up from first principle, towering and rigid as any structural engineer might wish, each line following necessarily from the previous one to link heaven and earth step by stepand how it is clear that for him engineering is subconsciously a way to make sense of the world and impose order on it, and to counter his natural tendencies to anxiety and apocalyptical dread, tendencies exacerbated by the financial crash and by the water contamination outbreak, but tendencies he also decries in his two children in their reaction to the latter.
- The perspective on being a father both of young children and of growing children starting to make their own way in life, as well as on being successfully married for many years.
Finally he clearly thinks actuaries are well dressed as seeing his artist daughter in a sensible coat he remarks that she looks so sharp that has she been someone else I would not have been surprised to hear that she worked in some sort of financial services job, insurance or something, some career where the value of the present moment is wagered against some unknowable future
Hugely recommended.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
The book is set on November 2nd 2009 (one day after All Souls Day and one year after the Irish financial crisis) and is narrated by a 49 year old civil engineer (Marcus) who works for a local council in County Mayo and lives in a small village with his teacher wife and two children – Agnes a conceptual artist (whose first exhibition is extracts from small court cases written in her own blood) and Darragh who is backpacking and fruit picking in Australia and whose unwillingness to engage in a career frustrates Marcus.
The subject matter of the book is largely conventional – its style anything but.
From the blurb we intentionally (on the author’s behalf) learn what Marcus only realises as the story ends – that he died of a heart attack around 8 months previously.
Further the book is written in a single, almost unpunctuated, sentence of Marcus thoughts roaming back and forth in time and with paragraph breaks commonly midsentence after “extension/joining” words. The book is though very easy to read and reproduces well the idea of someone’s thoughts flitting from subject to subject, picking up on and drawing out associations and memories. The book mainly explores the family’s past and recent history (including a severe food water contamination bug which strikes his wife) and Marcus’ job and interactions with the local pork barrel politics.
Generally a really excellent book – perhaps drifting a little in the middle, but uniquely capturing a normal life in an innovative way which is at the same time immediately natural and realistic.
November 30, 2022
دنیا آنچنان به تمامی از هر چیزی پاک شده که حتی خورشید هم از آسمان گرفته شده است و مرا کاملا تنها گذاشته، به هر طریقی که هست ما از دنیا محو میشویم....
خیلی قشنگ بود🥺
برنده ی جایزه ی ایمپک دوبلین سال ۲۰۱۸
نامزد دریافت جایزه ی من بوکر سال ۲۰۱۷
خیلی قشنگ بود🥺
برنده ی جایزه ی ایمپک دوبلین سال ۲۰۱۸
نامزد دریافت جایزه ی من بوکر سال ۲۰۱۷
February 13, 2019
This is the first time since reading David Foster Wallace that I have found any work of fiction to compare for a mind-blowing literary experience of the first order.
After the first few pages you will forget there are no full stops - although there are natural pauses ... and it all works beautifully.
There is so much good stuff pouring out of Ireland lately, but this surely must become a modern classic to rival Joyce etc.
Here is my (edited for spoilers) review for www.whichbook.net :-
Set in post recession Ireland, this daring novel pushes form and stylistic boundaries which some readers may find difficult to accept. The 'unreliable narrator' (i.e. unaware of what the reader knows) of this extended monologue relives episodes from his life in a lyrical stream of consciousnes, without full stops. Bear with it, because the emotional resonance of this form of storytelling makes for compulsive reading and is ultimately devastating in its impact.
Extract:-
'... that collapse which happened without offering any forewarning of itself, none that any of or prophets picked up on anyway as they were all apparently struck dumb and blind, robbed of all foresight when surely this was the kind of catastrophe prophets should have an eye for or some foreknowledge of but didn’t see since it is now evident in hindsight that our seers’ gifts were of a lesser order, their warnings lowered to a tremendous bleating, the voices of men hedging their bets and without the proper pitch of hysterical accusation as they settled instead for fault-finding and analysis, that cautionary note which in the end proved wholly inadequate to the coming disaster ...'
After the first few pages you will forget there are no full stops - although there are natural pauses ... and it all works beautifully.
There is so much good stuff pouring out of Ireland lately, but this surely must become a modern classic to rival Joyce etc.
Here is my (edited for spoilers) review for www.whichbook.net :-
Set in post recession Ireland, this daring novel pushes form and stylistic boundaries which some readers may find difficult to accept. The 'unreliable narrator' (i.e. unaware of what the reader knows) of this extended monologue relives episodes from his life in a lyrical stream of consciousnes, without full stops. Bear with it, because the emotional resonance of this form of storytelling makes for compulsive reading and is ultimately devastating in its impact.
Extract:-
'... that collapse which happened without offering any forewarning of itself, none that any of or prophets picked up on anyway as they were all apparently struck dumb and blind, robbed of all foresight when surely this was the kind of catastrophe prophets should have an eye for or some foreknowledge of but didn’t see since it is now evident in hindsight that our seers’ gifts were of a lesser order, their warnings lowered to a tremendous bleating, the voices of men hedging their bets and without the proper pitch of hysterical accusation as they settled instead for fault-finding and analysis, that cautionary note which in the end proved wholly inadequate to the coming disaster ...'
February 22, 2019
[4,5*]
Ο ήχος μιας καμπάνας, σημάδι του χρόνου που περνά, δίνει το στίγμα του βιβλίου. Ο Μάρκους Κόνγουεϊ, ένας μεσήλικας πολιτικός μηχανικός, κάνει έναν απολογισμό της πορείας της ζωής του (και, ταυτόχρονα, της Ιρλανδίας των τελευταίων δεκαετιών). Μιας πορείας που δεν είναι ευθύγραμμη, αλλά μοιάζει να αποτελείται από πολλές τεθλασμένες γραμμές. Και άντε να δεχθεί αυτή την περίεργη αρμονία ένας μηχανικός, που έχει μάθει να σκέφτεται λογικά, με τετραγωνάκια.
Όσον αφορά την γραφή, ο συγγραφέας δεν χρησιμοποιεί ούτε μια τελεία για 320 σελίδες περίπου, στα βήματα του Marquez στο Φθινόπωρο του πατριάρχη, με μάλλον πιο επιτηδευμένο στιλ. Όμως, κατά ένα περίεργο τρόπο, δεν με κούρασε, παρά με έκανε να το διαβάσω με έναν πιο φρενήρη ρυθμό απ’ ότι περίμενα.
Αν και δεν είμαι οπαδός του μεταμοντέρνου (ό,τι κι αν σημαίνει αυτό) σε οποιαδήποτε μορφή Τέχνης, εδώ-σχεδόν-συγκλονίστηκα.
Ο ήχος μιας καμπάνας, σημάδι του χρόνου που περνά, δίνει το στίγμα του βιβλίου. Ο Μάρκους Κόνγουεϊ, ένας μεσήλικας πολιτικός μηχανικός, κάνει έναν απολογισμό της πορείας της ζωής του (και, ταυτόχρονα, της Ιρλανδίας των τελευταίων δεκαετιών). Μιας πορείας που δεν είναι ευθύγραμμη, αλλά μοιάζει να αποτελείται από πολλές τεθλασμένες γραμμές. Και άντε να δεχθεί αυτή την περίεργη αρμονία ένας μηχανικός, που έχει μάθει να σκέφτεται λογικά, με τετραγωνάκια.
Όσον αφορά την γραφή, ο συγγραφέας δεν χρησιμοποιεί ούτε μια τελεία για 320 σελίδες περίπου, στα βήματα του Marquez στο Φθινόπωρο του πατριάρχη, με μάλλον πιο επιτηδευμένο στιλ. Όμως, κατά ένα περίεργο τρόπο, δεν με κούρασε, παρά με έκανε να το διαβάσω με έναν πιο φρενήρη ρυθμό απ’ ότι περίμενα.
Αν και δεν είμαι οπαδός του μεταμοντέρνου (ό,τι κι αν σημαίνει αυτό) σε οποιαδήποτε μορφή Τέχνης, εδώ-σχεδόν-συγκλονίστηκα.
January 25, 2021
This was a 217-page book. There was not one period in the book. So I guess it was one longggg sentence?
There was some beautiful writing in this book. I have to give it 4.5 stars. It held my attention throughout, although there were some pages that dragged….but not too often. You would think with no use of periods in the book It would be hard to follow, but after I got reconciled to that fact, after 3 pages it was pretty smooth sailing. Plus there were paragraphs and paragraph indents to help guide me as I read.
The story is pretty straightforward. It is told in the first person by husband-father-son Marcus Conway, Setting is a village, Louisburgh, in County Mayo Ireland. He is a structural engineer, and is married to a teacher Mairead, with a daughter Agnes who is in her 20s and lives nearby and is a struggling artist, and his son, Darragh, who is futzing about in Australia, and he Skypes with him. Marcus is telling his story on All Souls Day and he just had a heart attack—he is dead. I guess before he goes into oblivion he has some window of time where he can be ghost. We can look back at his recent days and his distant days (when he was a boy for example).
It was interesting…early on Marcus Conway tells us of a brief dalliance he had while away at a convention early on in his marriage and then he moved on to other things…I thought that was the end of him saying anything more about it…I was wrong. What he said later on in the book was very moving, and made for some touching and enjoyable reading (enjoyable in the sense that I was gripped by McCormack’ prose).
There is a chunk of the book devoted to food poisoning. That’s all I will say…I won’t say who got it, or what it was all about. The prose which focused on the food poisoning was enjoyable. Vomiting and diarrhea enjoyable? No, but again it was the writing—masterful riveting moving writing. You’ve gotta read it.
One passage among many that resonated with me, and it was early on in the book:
• “My childhood ability to get ahead of myself and reason to apocalyptic ends has remained intact over four decades and needs only the smallest prompt for it to renew itself once more and for me to get swept away in such yawning delirium of collapse.”
Note
• I finished McCormack’s second book, Crowes Requiem, way back on July 14, 2000. Gave it an A+. I need to re-read it now that I have read Solar Bones.
• Solar Bones won the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize and the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2017.
Reviews
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/bo...
• https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...
• https://www.startribune.com/review-so...
There was some beautiful writing in this book. I have to give it 4.5 stars. It held my attention throughout, although there were some pages that dragged….but not too often. You would think with no use of periods in the book It would be hard to follow, but after I got reconciled to that fact, after 3 pages it was pretty smooth sailing. Plus there were paragraphs and paragraph indents to help guide me as I read.
The story is pretty straightforward. It is told in the first person by husband-father-son Marcus Conway, Setting is a village, Louisburgh, in County Mayo Ireland. He is a structural engineer, and is married to a teacher Mairead, with a daughter Agnes who is in her 20s and lives nearby and is a struggling artist, and his son, Darragh, who is futzing about in Australia, and he Skypes with him. Marcus is telling his story on All Souls Day and he just had a heart attack—he is dead. I guess before he goes into oblivion he has some window of time where he can be ghost. We can look back at his recent days and his distant days (when he was a boy for example).
It was interesting…early on Marcus Conway tells us of a brief dalliance he had while away at a convention early on in his marriage and then he moved on to other things…I thought that was the end of him saying anything more about it…I was wrong. What he said later on in the book was very moving, and made for some touching and enjoyable reading (enjoyable in the sense that I was gripped by McCormack’ prose).
There is a chunk of the book devoted to food poisoning. That’s all I will say…I won’t say who got it, or what it was all about. The prose which focused on the food poisoning was enjoyable. Vomiting and diarrhea enjoyable? No, but again it was the writing—masterful riveting moving writing. You’ve gotta read it.
One passage among many that resonated with me, and it was early on in the book:
• “My childhood ability to get ahead of myself and reason to apocalyptic ends has remained intact over four decades and needs only the smallest prompt for it to renew itself once more and for me to get swept away in such yawning delirium of collapse.”
Note
• I finished McCormack’s second book, Crowes Requiem, way back on July 14, 2000. Gave it an A+. I need to re-read it now that I have read Solar Bones.
• Solar Bones won the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize and the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2017.
Reviews
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/bo...
• https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...
• https://www.startribune.com/review-so...
October 21, 2023
" this is how you get carried away
sitting here in this kitchen
carried away on an old theme, swept up on a rush of words and associations strewn out across the length and breadth of this country, a hail of images surging through me while at the bottom of the page another story of how"
Now Winner of the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award
Winner of the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize
Shortlisted for the 2017 Republic of Consciousness Prize
Ineligible for the 2016 Booker Prize (https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...) but republished by Canongate longlisted for the 2017 Prize (and inexplicably left off the shortlist)
Set on November 2nd 2009, one year after the financial crisis has crippled the Irish economy, Solar Bones is narrated by Marcus Conway, aged 49, a civil engineer, in charge of works at the local council, but from farming stock, living in the small village of Louisburgh in County Mayo with just his wife Mairead, a teacher, his two children Agnes, a conceptual artist, and Darragh, backpacking in Australia, having both left home in recent years.
My description makes this sound like a conventional novel. Solar Bones is anything but.
As the opening quote suggests, the narration does not progress at all linearly, but rather the entire novel is one unbroken sentence of Marcus' thoughts, set out with minimal punctuation but instead typeset unconventionally with paragraph breaks mid sentence.
These thoughts roam, by streams of association, across many topics including the financial crisis that has engulfed Ireland: world current affairs largely focused on conflicts; the death of Marcus' father: the beauty of the local countryside; the local pork barrel politics in which, as civil engineer, he is invariably enmeshed; his daughter's budding, but disturbing, artistic career, and his concern about his son's lack of vocation; and a severe vomiting bug caused by the cryptosporidiosis virus, which contaminated the local water supply, swept the local area and made his wife seriously ill.
He captures beautifully the way ones thoughts roam from topic to topic, how one's mind can drift while driving familiar roads so that one arrives at the destination realising that you have no memory of how you got there and must have performed the motions of driving automatically and sub-consciously.
The narration manages a wonderful mix of the relatively mundane and visionary, the domestic and the cosmic. There is a memorable set-piece, linking his engineering vocation to the way the world is held together, as he remembers his younger-self watching his father disassemble a tractor engine:
"... he stood over this altar of disassembly with nothing in his hand but a single open-end spanner which he waved over the assemblage as if it were a gesture of forgiveness ...
... looking at these engine parts spread across the floor my imagination took fright and soared to some wider, cataclysmic conclusion about how the universe itself was bolted and screwed together, believing I saw here how heaven and earth could come unhinged when some essential cottering pin was tapped out which would undo the whole vast assemblage of stars..."
This is an early example in the novel of the rather apocalyptic air to many of his thoughts. For example, this, from which the novel draws its title, triggered by the after images on his eyes as his computer screen fades after a skype conversation with Darragh "as if the light from the monitor had scaled them to the core, the kind of feeling you imagine you would have...."
" just before the world collapses
mountains, rivers and lakes
acres, roods and perches
into oblivion, drawn down into that fissure in creation where everything is consumed in the raging tides and swells of non-being, the physical world gone down in flames
mountains, rivers and lakes
and pulling with it also all those human rhythms that bind us together and draw the world into a community, those daily
rites, rhythms and rituals
upholding the world like solar bones, that rarefied amalgam of time and light whose extension through every minute of the day is visible from the moment I get up in the morning and stand at the kitchen window with a mug of tea in my hand, watching the first cars of the day passing on the road, every one of them known to me"
Or this about the 2008 financial crisis, which incidentally rather neatly skewers those who do today claim to have forecast what was coming:
" ...that collapse which happened without offering any forewarning of itself, none that any of our prophets picked up on anyway as they were
all apparently struck dumb and blind, robbed of all foresight when surely this was the kind of catastrophe prophets should have an eye for or some foreknowledge of but didn't see since it is now evident in hindsight that our seers' gifts were of a lesser order, their warnings lowered to a tremendous bleating, the voices of men hedging their bets and without the proper pitch of hysterical accusation as they settled instead for fault-finding and analysis, that cautionary note which in the end proved wholly inadequate to the coming disaster because pointing out flaws was never going to be enough and figures and projections, no matter how dire, were never likely to map out the real contours of the calamity or prove to an an adequate spell against it when, without that shrill tone of indictment, theirs was never a song to hold our attention and no point whatsover meeting catastrophe with reason when what was needed was
our prophets deranged
and coming towards us wild-eyed and smeared with shit, ringing a bell, seer and sinner at once while speaking some language from the edge of reason ..."
The whole story also has something of an air of failure and disappointment, of machines that break down, of engineering projects that fail: "something in me recognising this as a clear instance of the world forfeiting one of its better ideas, as if something for which there was once justified hope had proven to be a failure."
And from page one, Marcus feels there is something onimous about this particular day, a day:
" that has done nothing but drive me deeper into a grating dread which seems to determined to conceal its proper cause and which is all the more worrying since there is no doubt whatsoever of its reality or that it is underwritten in some imminent catastrophe
for me
or upon me
or through me
this fear which is
the whole mood of my vigil at this table for however long it's been since the Angelus bell struck so that even
while sitting here with my milk and sandwich, gusted to the core of my bones with the conviction that my wife and children will never come this way again, never return, this dread singing through me from the headlines of the foreign news pages of the newspaper"
As one reads one realises that his story never quite progresses beyond the illness his wife suffered, even though he talks of it in the past tense, and one starts to share his sense of foreboding.
But the revelation, when it comes, is perhaps the only slightly disappointing aspect of an otherwise excellent novel, both because it is a rather cliched device from movies, but also because it turns out to be revealed on the back cover. It's as if Agatha Christie's publisher has written "Roger Ackroyd is dead. The narrator killed him."
However, it transpires, even more oddly, that the author wanted you to know all along that Marcus is dead. From an interview:
“I made a deliberate decision to flag that at the beginning so that it would not come as a cheap reveal at the end of the book. I like the way that it privileges the reader throughout with a knowledge that Marcus does not have … it gives the reader a hold on the situation that Marcus does not have.”
(https://www.writing.ie/interviews/lit...)
But overall, exactly the sort of novel that the Goldsmiths Prize was designed to promote and a worthy winner.
June 15, 2018
Stream of…
First off, DON'T READ THE BLURB on the back cover of this book, or the description above! In its third line, it gives away something that Mike McCormack takes 200 pages to reveal, something that I see as the main point of the entire novel.** Instead, open at the first page and let McCormack's poetic language work on you:
the bellIt does not stop. Indeed, there is not a single period in the entire novel. I found it a mesmerizing beginning, with a rhythm that teases the ear, an echo of Joyce, the end of "The Dead" or Molly Bloom, fused with something that is all his own, something incantatory, magnificent, in its repetitions of short phrases:
the bell as
hearing the bell as
hearing the bell as standing here
the bell being heard standing here
hearing it ring out through the grey light of this
morning, noon or night
god knows
this grey day standing here and
listening to this bell in the middle of the day, the middle of the day bell, the Angelus bell in the middle of the day, ringing out through the grey light to
here
standing in the kitchen
hearing this bell
snag my heart and
draw the whole world into
being here
the village of LouisburghI was about to put this book on my poetry shelf, and still might. However, while this is a poet's language to which McCormack will return, very soon he will get into prose. Very dense prose sometimes, with paragraphs taking up an entire page, without break or major punctuation. It requires a special kind of reading: to let it all flow through you, picking up the images and feelings, but ignoring the details. I did not enjoy this, for I kept wanting to pause, to understand, to put things into some logical sequence, but was frustrated. Only in the last fifty pages or so did I find a rhythm that kept me moving forward yet gave me the details too. And very beautiful details they were; McCormack is a fine writer. Once I finally got into gear, I felt my first strong attachment to the character, and was gripped by the suspense of what would become of him. The end, especially, was quite moving, and finally explained the style in which the novel is written throughout.
from which the Angelus bell is ringing,
drawing up the world again
mountains, rivers and lakes
acres, roots, and perches
animal, mineral, vegetable
covenant, cross and crown
the given world with
all its history to brace myself while
standing here in the kitchen
of this house
The man in the kitchen is Marcus Conway, a civil engineer working for the county authorities in Mayo, on the west coast of Ireland. He lives with his wife Mairead, who is recuperating from a serious illness. Agnes, their eldest child, is an artist in Galway City nearby; their son Darragh is working in the Australian outback as part of a round-the-world trip to find himself. Marcus ranges far and wide in his memories, taking in local politics, global economics, and modernization. He remembers his father, also an engineer. He recalls the early years of his marriage, and its near collapse. He thinks of his time in the seminary, and how he gave up one creed for another, as intense as a religion itself. Like Christ in the wilderness, he meets temptation, and does not give in. All jumbled up. While there seems a kind of hindsight logic to it now, there was a long period when I had no idea what the author's point was, or where he was headed.
Towards the end, however, Marcus's thoughts concentrate on a period of about ten days leading up to the present moment. And as they do the book's focus begins to narrow. It is a novel about a family, and more particularly about a marriage, a long and ultimately very happy marriage. Once I realized that, I could stop reading for the originality of language alone, and fully empathize.
If only the blurb hadn't told me what was coming.**
======
** Reading other reviews and the comments attached to them, I have been pointed to an interview in which the author indicates that he actually wanted the reader to know what the blurb gives away. That does not necessarily make it right. It gave me one kind of reading experience, but I still feel that the other would have been stronger. Besides, an author is responsible for what is between the covers; relying on what is printed on the jacket just seems a weak play, abdicating responsibility for something that he could have made clearer in his own words if he wanted to.
August 18, 2017
This book certainly takes stream-of-consciousness to a whole new level, with not a full stop in sight! I was initially a bit wary, thinking I would find the lack of punctuation and meandering style irritating but I didn't at all and, in fact, I found it rather lovely to read. The family felt so real by the end of the book and it definitely stirred my heartstrings. I hope this makes the Man Booker shortlist, and I would be happy to see it win.
June 13, 2018
Now Winner of the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award
It is amazing how this text turns the life of an everyman - "husband, father, citizen" - into poetry! McCormack portrays what is mostly considered too common to make it the heart of a story, and in a way, he celebrates the life of those who make up and sustain our societies: Average people.
There are already many interesting and eloquent reviews of this book, so I'd like to restrict myself to challenging one notion that has been frequently maintained: I'd like to argue that this is indeed a political book. The difference to, for instance, Autumn or Home Fire is that McCormack talks about a lower level of politics. By doing so, he exposes dynamics that exist in and shape politcs in general, and he illustrates how the political sphere affects our lives, everyday, right in front of our eyes.
Protagonist Marcus Conway works as a civil engineer for the Mayo County council, and he is responsible for building projects,
"(...) projects which if taken all together, would amount to a fully serviced metroplis with adequate housing for a hundred-thousand souls, give or take, plus facilities for health and education and recreation with complete infrastructure (...)".
In his job, he is responsible for planning, timely construction, but also the solidity of the buildings. When a politician calls and wants him to sign off papers to start construction on a school building project, Marcus does not want to comply because he worries about the quality and compatibility of the envisioned building materials. The politician points out that he wants to cater to his constituency as he aims to be re-elected, while Marcus, who is just an employee, worries about the safety of the kids who will attend the school.
"(...) fuck engineers, Moylette roared, his temper now routed
engineers don't make the world, you should know that more than anyone, politics and politicians make the world and I'm telling you now I do not give one fuck whose name appears on that cert but
that's the difference between you and me John
what difference
the difference between a politician and an engineer, your decisions have only to hold up for four or five years - one electoral cycle (...)"
This tension between power politics and sound policy is very common on all levels of government (especially when there is a degree of uncertainty involved), and McCormack gives a vivid example of this dynamic and how it affects or might affect people - those working for the government and those living in the governed area.
Politics also plays an important role when McCormack describes the health crisis that emerges due to contaminated water. Marcus' beloved wife falls ill, and he has heated discussions with his kids which drift from the water crisis to politics in general. Marcus himself is also very critical of how the crisis is handled:
"(...) the civic authorities sought to locate the exact origin of the disaster it found that it could not be pinpointed to one specific cause, human or environmental, but that its primary source was in the convergence of adverse circumstances (...) which smudged and spread responsibility for the crisis in such a way as to make the whole idea of accountability a murky realm (...)" He sees the city "politically at its wits' end", then going on to use metaphors like "a company of zombies (...) shepherding a small flock of sheep".
McCormack brings politics into the domestic realm, and I really liked how he manages to merge these spheres. That he does that by using a stream of consciousness-technique (and even bringing this technique to another level by not using any punctuation) reminded me of Arthur Schnitzler's None But The Brave (German: "Leutnant Gustl"), an Austrian classic in which Schnitzler paints a portrait of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's obsession with honor and the military by taking a glimpse inside the head of an army lieutnant. McCormack imagines the thoughts of an everyman, and he paints a picture of modern society.
The aspect of politics is certainly not the main point of the novel, but it is one of many components that make the text so brillant.
It is amazing how this text turns the life of an everyman - "husband, father, citizen" - into poetry! McCormack portrays what is mostly considered too common to make it the heart of a story, and in a way, he celebrates the life of those who make up and sustain our societies: Average people.
There are already many interesting and eloquent reviews of this book, so I'd like to restrict myself to challenging one notion that has been frequently maintained: I'd like to argue that this is indeed a political book. The difference to, for instance, Autumn or Home Fire is that McCormack talks about a lower level of politics. By doing so, he exposes dynamics that exist in and shape politcs in general, and he illustrates how the political sphere affects our lives, everyday, right in front of our eyes.
Protagonist Marcus Conway works as a civil engineer for the Mayo County council, and he is responsible for building projects,
"(...) projects which if taken all together, would amount to a fully serviced metroplis with adequate housing for a hundred-thousand souls, give or take, plus facilities for health and education and recreation with complete infrastructure (...)".
In his job, he is responsible for planning, timely construction, but also the solidity of the buildings. When a politician calls and wants him to sign off papers to start construction on a school building project, Marcus does not want to comply because he worries about the quality and compatibility of the envisioned building materials. The politician points out that he wants to cater to his constituency as he aims to be re-elected, while Marcus, who is just an employee, worries about the safety of the kids who will attend the school.
"(...) fuck engineers, Moylette roared, his temper now routed
engineers don't make the world, you should know that more than anyone, politics and politicians make the world and I'm telling you now I do not give one fuck whose name appears on that cert but
that's the difference between you and me John
what difference
the difference between a politician and an engineer, your decisions have only to hold up for four or five years - one electoral cycle (...)"
This tension between power politics and sound policy is very common on all levels of government (especially when there is a degree of uncertainty involved), and McCormack gives a vivid example of this dynamic and how it affects or might affect people - those working for the government and those living in the governed area.
Politics also plays an important role when McCormack describes the health crisis that emerges due to contaminated water. Marcus' beloved wife falls ill, and he has heated discussions with his kids which drift from the water crisis to politics in general. Marcus himself is also very critical of how the crisis is handled:
"(...) the civic authorities sought to locate the exact origin of the disaster it found that it could not be pinpointed to one specific cause, human or environmental, but that its primary source was in the convergence of adverse circumstances (...) which smudged and spread responsibility for the crisis in such a way as to make the whole idea of accountability a murky realm (...)" He sees the city "politically at its wits' end", then going on to use metaphors like "a company of zombies (...) shepherding a small flock of sheep".
McCormack brings politics into the domestic realm, and I really liked how he manages to merge these spheres. That he does that by using a stream of consciousness-technique (and even bringing this technique to another level by not using any punctuation) reminded me of Arthur Schnitzler's None But The Brave (German: "Leutnant Gustl"), an Austrian classic in which Schnitzler paints a portrait of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's obsession with honor and the military by taking a glimpse inside the head of an army lieutnant. McCormack imagines the thoughts of an everyman, and he paints a picture of modern society.
The aspect of politics is certainly not the main point of the novel, but it is one of many components that make the text so brillant.
January 19, 2019
Man Booker Longlist 2017. Brilliant! It is November 2nd, All Souls’ Day when Catholics pray for the souls in purgatory and the dead return to walk the earth. The Angelus Bells ring out and we meet the narrator Marcus Conway sitting in the kitchen of the home he lived in for most of his life. He was a civil engineer in rural Ireland—in Louisburgh, near Westport, in the County Mayo—married to the schoolteacher Mairead and father of two grown children that confuse him. Agnes is a performance artist and Darragh is currently drifting from place to place in Australia.
In a single sentence of continuous stream of consciousness, McCormick has Marcus recount the key moments of his life as a father, husband, and civil engineer for the County. The longest story involves a water contamination crisis that caused over 400 people in the area—including his wife—to fall ill from cryptosporidiosis, a virus found in water contaminated by feces. The fault seems to be due to a combination of bureaucratic shortcomings. [Echoes of the Flint water crisis?]
Marcus’ eulogy to his small-town life with its “rites, rhythms and rituals/upholding the world like solar bones” reminds us of the strength such men provide a community. Highly recommend listening to Tim Reynolds' excellent narration—the reader avoids the confusing lack of punctuation and can revel in the musicality of his Irish accent.
In a single sentence of continuous stream of consciousness, McCormick has Marcus recount the key moments of his life as a father, husband, and civil engineer for the County. The longest story involves a water contamination crisis that caused over 400 people in the area—including his wife—to fall ill from cryptosporidiosis, a virus found in water contaminated by feces. The fault seems to be due to a combination of bureaucratic shortcomings. [Echoes of the Flint water crisis?]
Marcus’ eulogy to his small-town life with its “rites, rhythms and rituals/upholding the world like solar bones” reminds us of the strength such men provide a community. Highly recommend listening to Tim Reynolds' excellent narration—the reader avoids the confusing lack of punctuation and can revel in the musicality of his Irish accent.
September 1, 2017
Thoroughly obnoxious stream of dull thoughts. DNF
February 13, 2019
I found this to be a beautiful, rich, and rewarding book. On the surface, SOLAR BONES presents a middle-aged man's reflections on his work and family life. The meditation unfolds one early afternoon in November—the month of All Souls, when ghosts restlessly flit about—while the man is alone in the house he's lived in since he married 25 years ago.
Marcus Conway is an engineer with a metaphysical bent. In due time, the reader learns that his original intentions had been toward the priesthood. Having spent two years at a seminary as a young man before a voice told him to “cop himself on” (smarten up), he is well grounded in the humanities: poetry, philosophy, literature. Now, on this November afternoon, he muses about how all things tend towards entropy. The energy of the sun infuses, makes possible, all life on this planet, and it seems that part of the work of humans is to impose rhythm and meaning on existence, create structure, give life its "bones". However, things eventually wind down: they move from order and structure to disorder, dissolution, diffusion, oblivion. This process is working within Marcus himself as he looks back on his life while anxiously awaiting the return of his wife and children who might hold him in their gaze and affirm his existence.
McCormack's work thoughtfully explores the tension between politics and engineering. This may sound dull, but In McCormack’s capable hands, it works beautifully. Marcus reflects that an engineer, taking the long view, can withhold approval for a building that rests on unstable, unreliable foundations, knowing that it is only a matter of time before that the building will fail or fall—injuring, maiming, or killing the vulnerable. A politician's view, on the other hand, is fuelled by the desire for quick results which will keep him basking in his constituents' approval and propel him to ever higher office and power. Marcus’s working life was characterized by repeated wearing encounters with fractious elected officials eager to throw caution to the wind and present voters with pretty public works projects.
A large section of the book is devoted to Marcus's thoughts on a cryptosporidium water-contamination outbreak that leaves many in the Galway vicinity, including Martin's wife, Mairead, disabled for weeks by diarrhea and vomiting. It is a small matter perhaps, but McCormack refers to this illness as a virus when it is actually infection and inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract by microscopic parasitic organisms called Protozoa. As well, his descriptions of Mairead's bedridden days (the bouts of illness in which bodily fluids pour from one end or the other) run overly long. These seem to be fairly minor quibbles with an otherwise accomplished, impressive piece of stream-of-consciousness writing whose form embodies and serves its themes so well.
For me, SOLAR BONES provided a wonderful, unusual reading experience. I look forward to reading McCormack’s other works.
Rating: 4.5 rounded up to 5
Marcus Conway is an engineer with a metaphysical bent. In due time, the reader learns that his original intentions had been toward the priesthood. Having spent two years at a seminary as a young man before a voice told him to “cop himself on” (smarten up), he is well grounded in the humanities: poetry, philosophy, literature. Now, on this November afternoon, he muses about how all things tend towards entropy. The energy of the sun infuses, makes possible, all life on this planet, and it seems that part of the work of humans is to impose rhythm and meaning on existence, create structure, give life its "bones". However, things eventually wind down: they move from order and structure to disorder, dissolution, diffusion, oblivion. This process is working within Marcus himself as he looks back on his life while anxiously awaiting the return of his wife and children who might hold him in their gaze and affirm his existence.
McCormack's work thoughtfully explores the tension between politics and engineering. This may sound dull, but In McCormack’s capable hands, it works beautifully. Marcus reflects that an engineer, taking the long view, can withhold approval for a building that rests on unstable, unreliable foundations, knowing that it is only a matter of time before that the building will fail or fall—injuring, maiming, or killing the vulnerable. A politician's view, on the other hand, is fuelled by the desire for quick results which will keep him basking in his constituents' approval and propel him to ever higher office and power. Marcus’s working life was characterized by repeated wearing encounters with fractious elected officials eager to throw caution to the wind and present voters with pretty public works projects.
A large section of the book is devoted to Marcus's thoughts on a cryptosporidium water-contamination outbreak that leaves many in the Galway vicinity, including Martin's wife, Mairead, disabled for weeks by diarrhea and vomiting. It is a small matter perhaps, but McCormack refers to this illness as a virus when it is actually infection and inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract by microscopic parasitic organisms called Protozoa. As well, his descriptions of Mairead's bedridden days (the bouts of illness in which bodily fluids pour from one end or the other) run overly long. These seem to be fairly minor quibbles with an otherwise accomplished, impressive piece of stream-of-consciousness writing whose form embodies and serves its themes so well.
For me, SOLAR BONES provided a wonderful, unusual reading experience. I look forward to reading McCormack’s other works.
Rating: 4.5 rounded up to 5
January 6, 2020
Chaos and order at a kitchen table in Western Ireland
Of course, the Irish writer Mike McCormack (° 1965) is not the first one to write an extremely long internal monologue. His illustrious fellow countryman James Joyce and also Virginia Woolf are two well-known predecessors. But McCormack nevertheless managed to give his own twist to the process: we are constantly in the head of Marcus Conway, who - at his kitchen table at home - over 260 pages looks back on recent and less recent phases of his life and muses about the most various issues. Conway is an engineer at a municipal service in the west of Ireland, and is a concerned husband and father. At first glance, this friendly man seems an unlikely subject for an interesting novel. And yet.
McCormack manages to keep our attention going, even though his stylistic approach is not easy: there is not one full stop in this book, so technically it is a single sentence (of 260 pages). But, of course, invisible marks can be placed, because Marcus's internal monologue works associative, with a chain of large content blocks on the most diverse events or topics.
At first there doesn't seem to be a recurring theme, but after a while it becomes clear that it's about order and chaos, construction and decay. Our protagonist, engineer Conway has a special eye for the wonder of buildings and machines. In his eyes it are human achievements in which divine power is reflected; he even refers to the story that after the Creation God consciously transferred his power to engineers to finish the job. But then of course also countless signs of decay and decline come to his mind: in material objects, in relationships, in societal evolutions. The 2008 financial crisis in particular is a strong focal point, because it led to the collapse of the Irish ‘tiger’-economy. But also the corruption of politicians, building firms, and even fellow engineers is hinted at. And, finally, there's also the mysterious water poisoning occurring in his city (strong references here to ‘La Peste’ van Camus) and of which his wife becomes a victim.
McCormack has done a tremendous job to pass al these musings to us, through the mind of Marcus Conway. Some of the associations are brought in a very poetic way. And though not all excerpts are equally successful, and at times the prose flows a bit in thin air, the whole book really makes a strong impression. And then there is especially the final passage, about 30 pages long, that is truly unparalleled (I'm not going to spoil this one). This McCormack certainly is not for everyone (neither are Woolf nor Joyce), but with this "Solar Bones" my reading year 2020 really started with a loud bang. (3.5 stars)
Of course, the Irish writer Mike McCormack (° 1965) is not the first one to write an extremely long internal monologue. His illustrious fellow countryman James Joyce and also Virginia Woolf are two well-known predecessors. But McCormack nevertheless managed to give his own twist to the process: we are constantly in the head of Marcus Conway, who - at his kitchen table at home - over 260 pages looks back on recent and less recent phases of his life and muses about the most various issues. Conway is an engineer at a municipal service in the west of Ireland, and is a concerned husband and father. At first glance, this friendly man seems an unlikely subject for an interesting novel. And yet.
McCormack manages to keep our attention going, even though his stylistic approach is not easy: there is not one full stop in this book, so technically it is a single sentence (of 260 pages). But, of course, invisible marks can be placed, because Marcus's internal monologue works associative, with a chain of large content blocks on the most diverse events or topics.
At first there doesn't seem to be a recurring theme, but after a while it becomes clear that it's about order and chaos, construction and decay. Our protagonist, engineer Conway has a special eye for the wonder of buildings and machines. In his eyes it are human achievements in which divine power is reflected; he even refers to the story that after the Creation God consciously transferred his power to engineers to finish the job. But then of course also countless signs of decay and decline come to his mind: in material objects, in relationships, in societal evolutions. The 2008 financial crisis in particular is a strong focal point, because it led to the collapse of the Irish ‘tiger’-economy. But also the corruption of politicians, building firms, and even fellow engineers is hinted at. And, finally, there's also the mysterious water poisoning occurring in his city (strong references here to ‘La Peste’ van Camus) and of which his wife becomes a victim.
McCormack has done a tremendous job to pass al these musings to us, through the mind of Marcus Conway. Some of the associations are brought in a very poetic way. And though not all excerpts are equally successful, and at times the prose flows a bit in thin air, the whole book really makes a strong impression. And then there is especially the final passage, about 30 pages long, that is truly unparalleled (I'm not going to spoil this one). This McCormack certainly is not for everyone (neither are Woolf nor Joyce), but with this "Solar Bones" my reading year 2020 really started with a loud bang. (3.5 stars)
June 18, 2019
Solar Bones by Mike McCormack. Kindle Edition. Tramp Press. ©2016.
Tramp Press is a publishing company founded in Dublin in 2014 and is an independent publisher that specializes in Irish fiction.
Magnificent. This is by far the best work of adult fiction I've read this year, in fact in several. (And I have read some great ones!) A rare insightful look inside the mind of a family man from County Mayo. A stream-of-consciousness novel like James Joyce; poetic, spare, passionate. Surprising. A brilliant book written in a single sentence.
This book is:
Longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize
Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize
Winner of the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year
An Irish Times Book Club Choice
Highly recommend.
Tramp Press is a publishing company founded in Dublin in 2014 and is an independent publisher that specializes in Irish fiction.
Magnificent. This is by far the best work of adult fiction I've read this year, in fact in several. (And I have read some great ones!) A rare insightful look inside the mind of a family man from County Mayo. A stream-of-consciousness novel like James Joyce; poetic, spare, passionate. Surprising. A brilliant book written in a single sentence.
This book is:
Longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize
Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize
Winner of the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year
An Irish Times Book Club Choice
Highly recommend.
February 10, 2019
Ο Ιρλανδός Μάρκους Κονγουει είναι μηχανικός. Με το μυαλό του μηχανικού προσπαθεί να βάλει τη ζωή του σε τετραγωνάκια και να καταλάβει τις γραμμές που προεξέχουν έξω από αυτά. Όχι πως δεν τις δέχεται. Απλά του φαίνονται καθόλα μη αρμονικές. Χαρακτηριστικό αυτού η σκηνή όπου λίγο πριν το Τέλος, βρίσκει απρόσμενα ένα μισάωρο για τον εαυτό του και κορυφώνει συγκλονιστικά τις απορίες και τις ενστάσεις του για τη ζωή στο εδώ και στο μετά
October 30, 2021
Αυτό το βιβλίο πόζαρε στον Σηκουάνα, στο τρένο από Παρίσι για Ρουέν. Διαβάστηκε εκεί λίγο, θα ήταν δεν θα ήταν τριάντα ή σαράντα σελίδες. Μετά διαβάστηκε πιο γενναία στα παπλώματα ενός Ρώσου στην Ρουέν, με ένα γλειφιτζούρι κοκα κολα, δώρο από ένα εστιατόριο (εξαιρετική κίνηση). Μετά λίγο ακόμα στην πτήση Παρίσι Αθήνα και κάπου μεταξύ Μαρούσι και Παιανία τελείωσε, με δάκρυα στα μάτια, πριν τις εννιά το πρωί.
Κανονικά, θα έπρεπε να διαβαστεί σε ένα απόγευμα- με μια ανάσα. Εφόσον δεν υπάρχει ούτε μια τελεία, ένα ερωτικό, ένα θαυμαστικό. Μια αφηγηματική τεχνική που είναι ανοιχτή σε πολλές ερμηνείες, αλλά δεν κάνουμε αυτό εδώ – τουλάχιστον προσπαθούμε. Πως μας φαίνεται που ο χαώδης μονόλογος του Μάρκου Κόνγουεϊ, ενός πολιτικού μηχανικού, μας πιάνει και μας χτυπάει σαν χταπόδια; Άλλες φορές δεν το κάνει όμως. Γιατί ο μονόλογος δεν είναι πληκτικός επειδή είναι μια φωνή. Για την ακρίβεια δεν είναι μια φωνή, είναι πολλές και για την ακρίβεια δεν είναι ούτε καν ένας άνθρωπος. Απλά μια φωνή ακούμε, έναν άνθρωπο βλέπουμε – κάτι που κάποιος ίσως βιώσει μουντά, αλλά ξεκάθαρα υπάρχουν καλειδοσκόπια εδώ.
Μόλις πάει δώδεκα το μεσημέρι, μετά από μια καμπάνα κάπου ίδιες μέρες με αυτές που διανύουμε, ο ήρωας μας παίρνει φωνή και μας αφηγείται την ενδοσκόπηση του, την γυναίκα του, τα παιδιά του, την χώρα του, τους πολιτικούς, τα χρήματα. Μια αφήγηση σχημάτων, όπως ορίζεται από έναν μηχανικό. Ο τελευταίος μηχανικός που γνώρισα είχε λυσσάξει να μου φτιάξει μιας κοσμηματοθήκη και βάλθηκε να μου την περιγράφει ενώ εγώ είχε πάρει ήδη τρεις και σκόπευα να τις συνδυάσω, να ντύσω το ξύλο με βελούδο. Τι βελούδο του έλεγα, τι σχήματα και ξύλο μου απαντούσε. Αυτό μου θύμισε και ο Κόνγουεϊ με την προσπάθεια του να χωρέσει τα πάντα, μέχρι και τον εαυτό του, στο ίδιο σχήμα, όχι με αφέλεια, αλλά με μια ευγενική συμπαντική τάξη.
Συγκινητικό, κάποτε δύσκολο, κάποτε εύκολο, στο ίδιο κανάλι των αγαπημένων Bernhard και Bolaño, ίσως και Krasznahorkai εξαιτίας της επιμονής για απειθαρχία.
«Και για να αλλάξω θέμα, προχώρησες καθόλου με το Kid A
το άκουσα μου άρεσε –νομίζω- εάν και έμοιαζε αρκετά με ξενέρωτο King Crimson»
Κανονικά, θα έπρεπε να διαβαστεί σε ένα απόγευμα- με μια ανάσα. Εφόσον δεν υπάρχει ούτε μια τελεία, ένα ερωτικό, ένα θαυμαστικό. Μια αφηγηματική τεχνική που είναι ανοιχτή σε πολλές ερμηνείες, αλλά δεν κάνουμε αυτό εδώ – τουλάχιστον προσπαθούμε. Πως μας φαίνεται που ο χαώδης μονόλογος του Μάρκου Κόνγουεϊ, ενός πολιτικού μηχανικού, μας πιάνει και μας χτυπάει σαν χταπόδια; Άλλες φορές δεν το κάνει όμως. Γιατί ο μονόλογος δεν είναι πληκτικός επειδή είναι μια φωνή. Για την ακρίβεια δεν είναι μια φωνή, είναι πολλές και για την ακρίβεια δεν είναι ούτε καν ένας άνθρωπος. Απλά μια φωνή ακούμε, έναν άνθρωπο βλέπουμε – κάτι που κάποιος ίσως βιώσει μουντά, αλλά ξεκάθαρα υπάρχουν καλειδοσκόπια εδώ.
Μόλις πάει δώδεκα το μεσημέρι, μετά από μια καμπάνα κάπου ίδιες μέρες με αυτές που διανύουμε, ο ήρωας μας παίρνει φωνή και μας αφηγείται την ενδοσκόπηση του, την γυναίκα του, τα παιδιά του, την χώρα του, τους πολιτικούς, τα χρήματα. Μια αφήγηση σχημάτων, όπως ορίζεται από έναν μηχανικό. Ο τελευταίος μηχανικός που γνώρισα είχε λυσσάξει να μου φτιάξει μιας κοσμηματοθήκη και βάλθηκε να μου την περιγράφει ενώ εγώ είχε πάρει ήδη τρεις και σκόπευα να τις συνδυάσω, να ντύσω το ξύλο με βελούδο. Τι βελούδο του έλεγα, τι σχήματα και ξύλο μου απαντούσε. Αυτό μου θύμισε και ο Κόνγουεϊ με την προσπάθεια του να χωρέσει τα πάντα, μέχρι και τον εαυτό του, στο ίδιο σχήμα, όχι με αφέλεια, αλλά με μια ευγενική συμπαντική τάξη.
Συγκινητικό, κάποτε δύσκολο, κάποτε εύκολο, στο ίδιο κανάλι των αγαπημένων Bernhard και Bolaño, ίσως και Krasznahorkai εξαιτίας της επιμονής για απειθαρχία.
«Και για να αλλάξω θέμα, προχώρησες καθόλου με το Kid A
το άκουσα μου άρεσε –νομίζω- εάν και έμοιαζε αρκετά με ξενέρωτο King Crimson»
June 18, 2019
Η γλώσσα θριαμβεύει επίσης στο μετατζοϋσικό/μεταγουαλασικό μονοφωνικό μυθιστόρημα Κόκαλα από Ήλιο (μετάφραση-για-βραβείο: Παναγιώτης Κεχαγιάς, εκδ. Αντίποδες) του δυναμικότατου Μάικ Μακόρμακ (Mike McCormack, 1965), ο οποίος επίσης εστιάζει στο καθημερινό, στο κοινότοπο, στο φαινομενικά ασήμαντο και αδιάφορο για να συνθέσει, με μουσική μαεστρία πραγματικά, ένα μυθιστόρημα-κατεβατό, από το οποίο απουσιάζουν εντελώς η τελεία, το ερωτηματικό, και το θαυμαστικό – οι παράγραφοι χωρίζονται, όπως πολλές φορές συμβαίνει στα θεατρικά του Μπέρνχαρντ, απλώς με το να εκκινούν μια αράδα πιο κάτω. Ο ήρωας του μυθιστορήματος, ο πολιτικός μηχανικός Μάρκους Κόνγουεϊ, παλαιότερα φοιτητής θεολογίας και μετέπειτα κηπουρός, κάθεται στην κουζίνα της κατοικίας του, αναμένει, στοιχάζεται, επιδίδεται σε μια, επίσης φαινομενικά, αμοντάριστη σκηνοθεσία, τύπου Γιόνας Μέκας, σκηνοθεσία του φιλμ της έως τότε ζωής του.
July 11, 2019
Λατρεύω τα βιβλία που σε βάζουν σε ρυθμό , την επανάληψη και τις μακροπεριοδες προτάσεις που τις περισσότερες φορές οδηγούν σε παραλήρημα , σε ένα δριμύ κατηγορώ εξαιτίας αυτού κι'αυτου και τ'αλλου λόγου . Οταν το περιεχόμενο συνδυάζεται με ουσία ( όπως σε αυτό το βιβλίο ) τότε πραγματικά μένω έκθαμβος με το αποτέλεσμα και με μεγάλο θαυμασμό προς το συγγραφέα . Για να είμαι και δίκαιος πάντως τους μάστερς στο είδος - από τους συγγραφείς που έχω διαβάσει - δεν τους πιάνει ( Μπέρνχαρντ , Κρασναχορκάι , Μπολανιο κ.ο.κ ) .
September 1, 2017
I'm giving this 2 stars because I've read worse. And, also, if I allowed myself to fully comprehend how much time and energy I just wasted on getting through this book, I would have to commit seppuku. Today I choose to live!
Strike One: A major plot element is portrayed erroneously.
Crytposporidium is neither coliform (a bacteria) nor a virus. It is an enteric pathogen of the parasitic class. (And, no, "viral parasite" isn't acceptable either.). McCormack's insistence on classifying "crypto" as a viral outbreak for hundreds of pages is as perverse as it is incorrect.
Does this matter? I think so. Nobody would take me seriously if I penned a novel with large sections devoted to the English Horn and continually referred to it as a brass instrument.
Strike Two: There are obvious grammatical errors.
"...a soft opportunity from which I had neither the wit nor courage to back away from..." and "...they were solid things to which I might hang onto with both hands..." Placing the preposition both before and after the clause is just sad.
"...which was of course was the very feature..." Placing the verb at several points in the same sentence fragment is also super sloppy.
When an author requires a reader to follow one extended, largely unpunctuated phrase for 265 pages, he or she needs to be precise and exact with their word-flow. Anything less is a sadistic breach of contract.
Strike Three: The protagonist (Marcus Conway), his history, and his philosophies are uniformly uninteresting and seldom illuminating.
Stream-of-consciousness is all well and good - and, as James Joyce so skillfully showed, can be an incredibly powerful and effective literary tool - but this is closer to stream-of-crappiness too much of the time.
Strike One: A major plot element is portrayed erroneously.
Crytposporidium is neither coliform (a bacteria) nor a virus. It is an enteric pathogen of the parasitic class. (And, no, "viral parasite" isn't acceptable either.). McCormack's insistence on classifying "crypto" as a viral outbreak for hundreds of pages is as perverse as it is incorrect.
Does this matter? I think so. Nobody would take me seriously if I penned a novel with large sections devoted to the English Horn and continually referred to it as a brass instrument.
Strike Two: There are obvious grammatical errors.
"...a soft opportunity from which I had neither the wit nor courage to back away from..." and "...they were solid things to which I might hang onto with both hands..." Placing the preposition both before and after the clause is just sad.
"...which was of course was the very feature..." Placing the verb at several points in the same sentence fragment is also super sloppy.
When an author requires a reader to follow one extended, largely unpunctuated phrase for 265 pages, he or she needs to be precise and exact with their word-flow. Anything less is a sadistic breach of contract.
Strike Three: The protagonist (Marcus Conway), his history, and his philosophies are uniformly uninteresting and seldom illuminating.
Stream-of-consciousness is all well and good - and, as James Joyce so skillfully showed, can be an incredibly powerful and effective literary tool - but this is closer to stream-of-crappiness too much of the time.
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