About book The Old Jest (filmed As The Dawning) (1988)
You should read this book. Maybe stories about the Irish Troubles don't appeal to you? Maybe you don't like coming of age stories either? Too bad. You should still read this book.This is a terse retelling of a few shattering days in the life of a young girl, Nancy Gulliver, in Ireland during the 1920's. She has lived a somewhat sheltered life as part of a gentry family suffering a slow decline in their fortunes. One day she encounters a strange man, Angus Barry, intent on hiding out in the beach shack she has turned into a personal retreat. They reach an accommodation eventually; they even become friends, of a sort.It was their scenes together that I found the most fascinating, there is a strange dynamic to their encounters that reflects in some way Nancy's odd situation - she is 18, grown up, but still a child; she is from an upper class family, but they are in decline; she is very intelligent, but impractical; she is independent, but inexperienced. Barry sees all these conflicting things in her (maybe better than her family does)and allows himself to be distracted from his political concerns enough to befriend her. Barry himself is fighting his own inner conflicts, he is an unrepentant rebel, but he is beginning to understand the toll it has taken on his life.There is an honesty in their discourse and a powerful strength in their interactions that is remarkable. Both are seemingly without intimate connections and they discover in each other a sympathetic listener and ally.It doesn't end well, but that could be predicted from the start. However, the end is satisfying and later I found myself dwelling more on the events of the story than the crushing end. I think this is the mark of a wonderful book, as the characters come alive in your head you want to visit with them again, just like with any good friend.**The movie is worth chasing down as well, a mostly faithful adaptation with a few extra charming scenes.
This novel reminds me very much of Elizabeth Bowen's "The Last September" yet it was written nearly a half century later. A fine novel, but why does Johnston focus on the beginning of "the troubles" ca. 1920 rather than on more contemporary manifestations? Makes me wonder if Anglo-Irish writers still harbor nostalgia for the period when they were ascendent in Ireland--although on the cusp of losing power. Maybe it's the old Walter Scott formula for writing historical fiction, that its appropriate topic is the clash between two peoples or civilizations, when one is falling as the other rises.
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