About book The Speckled People: A Memoir Of A Half-Irish Childhood (2004)
I rated this book 3.5 stars.In this memoir Hugo Hamilton tells the story of his youth. Born in Dublin in the 1950’s with a German mother and an Irish, nationalistic, father his upbringing was anything but conventional. Because of his father’s strong and uncompromising views on being Irish and resurrecting the Irish identity it was forbidden to speak English in their house. While the rest of Dublin lived in an English speaking world, Hugo and his siblings grew up speaking German and Irish at home, with punishment awaiting anyone who dared to bring English into their home. They are “the speckled people”, partly from Ireland and partly from somewhere else. “We are the brack children. Brack, homemade Irish bread with German raisins.”Because of his father’s views on being and speaking Irish the family found themselves outsiders in the neighbourhood where they lived. Having a German mother at a time when World War II was still a very recent memory only made things worse for the Hamilton children. Teasing, bullying and being left on the fringes of the world they lived in were the result. And there is so much the children don’t understand, things that will only become clear when they are older (and mostly after the story in this book has ended); the past his father is ashamed of and trying to hide, and the pain his mother caries with her always as a result of things she witnessed, was exposed to and had to endure during Hitler’s reign in Germany. This is a family that doesn’t really fit in anywhere. Cultures clash, differences confuse and all young Hugo wants is to be the same as anybody else, to not to be called a Nazi and treated like an outcast.In many was this was a fascinating book. It was interesting to read about Ireland in the fifties and sixties, and the composition of this family made this into a unique story. Up until fairly recently foreigners were a rarity in Ireland and I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like to be one in Dublin during those days, never mind being a German so shortly after the war. And while I’m all for raising children bi-lingual, the set up in this book, with the children not being allowed to speak the language everybody else around them was using, smacks of child-cruelty. I had a difficult time with the way in which this story was told though. Although the story was obviously written with hindsight by an adult author, the language and images used are those of the child at the time the events take place. This means that a lot is not said or explained. An awful lot of what must have been happening is left unsaid because the child Hugo didn’t understand what was going on. This means that the reader has to read between the lines and draw their own conclusions. Was the father just misguided and overzealous in his determination to only allow Irish in his house or was he actually a cruel man? Was his mother a loving and supportive creature, or was she weak and ignoring problems when she should have been able to deal with them and maybe protect her children better? These questions weren’t answered for me while I was reading the book, and now that I’ve read the last page, I’m still not sure. I will say though that I admire the way the author seemed to have gone with complete honesty and didn’t try to make his younger self look perfect. In fact, at times he seems to actively dislike the person he was back then.On the other hand, there were some observations that I did recognise and love, like:“My mother says you can’t be sure in Ireland if people say things with admiration or not. Irish people are good at saying things in between admiration and accusation between envy and disdain.”And while this book may have been published in 2003, with the story being set in the 1950’s, some things are as true now as they were back then. In fact, the following statement seems to have real relevance these days: “Irish people were so afraid of being poor that they spent all their money, while German people were so afraid of being poor that they saved up every penny.”Overall I would call this a powerful story which, unfortunately, was told in a way that just didn’t work very well for me.
I love this book so much because it makes me keep questioning about humanity. When I read about the bullying and execution, I feel so terrible and almost lost my fatih on human beings. The authour always write other plots at that time to reagin my faith on human beings. There's a significant scene about the author's sister. What the conductor did makes me feel warm again.Actually I was a bit confused when I first read the reaction of the mother on her sons were bullied. I felt a little upset about how she told her sons to be silent negative after they were bullied for so long. AFter reading what she had been through in Germany, I appreciate her. She was not the one who was indifferent with everything. She knew a lot so she used the appropriate way to handle these stuff. Actually I am glad that she is the mother of the author. We might not be able to read such great piece written by the author.As a non English native speaker, I actually find the language of this book is relativley simple because the author used child's perspective in writing. Simpler structure and vocabulary are used to suit the language level of a child. I enjoy this so much. This actually a great book to introduce the complexity of human beings and Irish history. Because of this, I am really looking forward to read other books written by the author.
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I don't really know what to think about this book. It has been hightly recommended to me by a couple of people who actually used to share my type of books so I was really expecting a great experience. But I have been quite disappointed. I don't know if it is the childish point of view (and language level) that lowed the experience but I didn't enjoy it as much as I was supposed to. Well, I truly believe that the time you read a book is a huge factor in your appreciation of it and with all the work I have to do, maybe the best circumstances were not reunited. I should give the book an other chance one day or another because I think that somewhere, in the corner of my mind, a part of the story caught my attention and in one way I'm convinced that the characters have a lot of thing to share with the reader. So I will not write a long review because I think that it would not do this book a good justice.
—Margot
Hugo Hamilton erzählt von seiner Kindheit in Irland mit einer deutschen Mutter und einem irischen Vater, der seinen Kindern verbietet, englisch zu sprechen. Man kann sich vorstellen, dass das für ihn und seine Geschwister nicht immer einfach war, denn in den Fünfzigern waren die Nazis noch recht frisch im Gedächtnis (und Kinder können ja so grausam sein) und auch irisch war nicht mehr wirklich üblich.Das Buch ist auch ungewöhnlich in dem Sinne, dass es wirklich wie von einem Kind geschrieben wirkt. Die Formulierungen, Interpretationen von Handlungen und Ereignissen, Erklärungen etc. sind angepasst an den Ich-Erzähler. Deswegen ist das Buch sehr ehrlich und ungefiltert und die Handlung springt teilweise hin und her. Von einem Absatz auf den anderen werden Erinnerungen verfolgt und dann genauso plötzlich wieder verlassen. Erstaunlicherweise ist jedoch immer klar, wo man gerade ist und die Sprache ist sehr plastisch und wird erfinderisch eingesetzt. Das Deutsch ist allerdings manchmal orthografisch bedenklich (z.B. kaput, Baümchen). Ob das Irische immer korrekt ist, kann ich nicht beurteilen…Jedenfalls wird das Buch laut den Kritiken auf und im Einband ein Klassiker werden und man sollte es auf jeden Fall gelesen haben. Ganz so enthusiastisch würde ich da nicht sein, aber es ist anders und gibt einen interessanten Einblick in eine ungewöhnliche Kindheit.
—Julia
I really liked this memoir of a boy growing up in fifties Ireland with a german mother and Irish father.As in a lot of memoirs I read, the father was stubborn and misguided and the mother an understanding saint of a woman. The writer never faltered from telling his story from a childs point of view. The fathers belief in a future Ireland where only the Irish language was spoken, forbade his children to speak English or even listen to it spoken.The children were ostracised from their peers and made the target of bullies.The mothers experiences during the war and her escape to Ireland to get away from the oppressive regime after the war, is told very sensitively. All through the book we can see the young boy struggling for his own identity, not knowing is he German or Irish and rebelling against everyone because he’s so mixed up.
—minnie
