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Books Related to Creatures of the Earth John McGahern - ISBN: 0571237851
Great book if you can get it! - Rated
The cover of the recently published hardback edition of John McGahern's 'Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories' is greyish with a lightly coloured picture of the author looking out from it. This book was published in the autumn of 2006: the title story, appearing in print for the first time, was finished and included (along with another story never published before) in a revised selection of short stories, put together by the author shortly before his death last year. The book illustrated alongside the title at the top of this page has a blue cover with no picture and white lettering that describes it as John McGahern's 'Collected Short Stories' and is a different, much earlier publication first publlished in 1992 and containing many of the same stories, but in an unrevised form. I pointed out this confusion after ordering, as I thought, the new book with its title 'Creatures of the Earth', but receiving in response to my order a copy of the 1992 publication. I was thanked for my message, but am astonished to find the same confusing double message in place nearly two months later. While I am unable to speak too highly of the new book, which includes one of the most exquisitely heartbreaking portaits of a good marriage moving into the separation of death - the territory that McGahern was quietly forshadowing in his late novel 'That They May Face The Rising Sun' - I cannot do so without warning prospective readers that if you click on this title you may find yourself unwrapping the wrong book!
A dissenting voice - Rated
McGahern is a very under-rated writer and this volume proves that he has a place within the canon of great short story writers . His stories give a subtle and perceptive analysis of the sacrosanct values of life in the Republic of Ireland - Church and State, the violent past,the worship of martyrs,the conservative , nationalist consensus - but they are concerned with the role of the individual and the working out of his or her own destiny within these constricting ortodoxies. His voice is wry and sceptical but rarely disaffected and although he views the overall values of Irish society from a detached and often critical angle he is always humane and sympathetic to the dilemnas which his characters face. He is particularly acute when he depicts the limitations placed on women by these patriarchal values - it is well worth reading his Booker nominated novel Amongst Women for this reason. He is not afraid to point out the flaws in Irish society - its narrowness, its puritanism , its embrace of materialist values despite its piety and the Ireland he depicts is a long way from the romantic and exclusive vision of the De Valera years . It was just these qualities which led to his being forced into exile in London in the 1950s .All of which makes him sound rather heavy going but the reader is easily carried along by his skill and intelligence and the small lives which he depicts are recognisably our own. His stories achieve a universality which takes them beyond the small farms and tiny villages of Leitrim and the Dublin suburbs. His understanding of human nature and his sympathy for our struggles make him an impressive and rewarding and above all hugely enjoyable writer .
