Whitethorn Woods

Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
So thus far, this was my least favorite Maeve Binchy, which I expected given that I was rather "eh" about the premise and bought it for $2 Canadian on my last day in Montreal.

The titular woods in Rossmore, Ireland are home to a shrine of St. Ann's that is being threatened with extinction due to a new motorway coming through. Binchy weaves together the stories of dozens of people who live in Rossmore or have prayed at the shrine, leaving the fate of the place itself in the balance until the last possible minute. The theme, obviously, is modernity vs. tradition in Ireland. A lot of the stories are pitch-perfect pleasure-reading sappy, some veer towards being too sappy, but some are unusually sharp and unsentimental for Binchy, including a nasty little murder plot.

Aside from displaying her warmth and emotional acuity, the fact that all the stories are first person reveals that Binchy also has a really great talent for manipulating perspective and unreliable narration. She writes these stories in the voices of flawed people that leave you gasping, somehow, with your feelings of both stern judgment and sympathy for them. Most of the stories in WW are intersecting and paired, too (first you hear from a character, then you hear from his or her sibling/spouse/teacher etc) so you hear bits of the same events from two different points of view, which is very clever and thought-provoking.

So with all this praise, why wasn't this my favorite? Answer: the religious element. It felt a little too hokey, particularly the stuff surrounding the shrine and how the characters truly believe it will answer their prayers. Although Binchy tries to counteract this through the eyes of a skeptical priest (!!) this wasn't enough skepticism to suit my tastes. And more importantly, I'm not sure Binchy really believed it either.

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Scarlet Feather

So we all know that I'm a Maeve Binchy fan--in fact my post-snobbery discovery of her warm-Irish-sconey/cup-of-Barry's tea-on-a-rainy-day goodness is like, the raison d'etre for this blog.

Scarlet Feather is part of an interconnected group of Binchy;s Dublin books. By this I mean that all the characters in this novel, Tara Road, and Quentins all work in the food industry in Dublin and pop in and out of each others' stories and pages--which is super fun for the avid Binchy reader. As in its companion novels, food in Scarlet Feather is only used to represent all the things Binchy values in life: comfort, honesty, hard work and perseverance and taking care of other human beings, providing nourishment of the soul, body, spirit etc etc. The Dublin books are by far her best because she knows the city, its rhythms and changes, the types of women and men who walk its streets, so intimately.

This book took me about 30 hours of nearly straight reading. It was that absorbing and lovely.

It's about Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, two youngish Dublin chefs-in-training who dream of starting their own catering business. They are both in relationships that hit troubled spots over the course of the first year of Scarlet Feather, (the newly-formed company, not the novel) and as always, Binchy introduces a cast of supporting characters including a strange pair of neglected wealthy twin-children, a loveable older man who's hopelessley addicted to the race track, an "independent woman" who has given up some of her dignity in exchange for a lavish lifestyle, and more. Of course, they all help each other cope with various crises, there are a few mysteries solved, and some sad endings sow the seed for new beginnings :)

Binchy understands love, ambition, loyalty, and the unintentional hurt well-meaning people causeeach other every day because they're focused on their own struggle for survival. But she also gets what it means to heal and move on.

I couldn't adore her writing more.

Nights of Rain and Stars

What can a gal say about reading mother Maeve? I devoured this treat during the course of a two hour train ride up the mighty Hudson, and I was close to bawling from page five right til the end. The book is about children and parents not understanding each other, channeled through a group of wayward souls who meet up in an island town in Greece. All of our band of travellers have lost touch or quarreled with their parents or kids (or in one case, lover) and put miles and miles of distance between themselves and Home. As they drink tons of greek Ouzo and feast on tomatoes and feta, a tragedy strikes and they all have to confront stuff- like, you know, Life and What It All Means. Simplistic, yes. A cliche, perhaps. But I find something so god damn genuine and touching about Binchy's infinite wisdom and compassion for the whole fucking human race that I lose it every time I read one of her books. She is a wonderful woman and a wise writer. And I look forward to the next time I can get lost in her world of words for a few sacred hours.

A side-by-side comparison of great Irish storytellers.

Welcome to my new blog, the aim of which is to talk about books, culture, and other fun bs, without the pressure of its being an "education-oriented" blog like my previous effort. I needed to free myself from those shackles.
Speaking of the shackles wherewith we bind ourselves, back when F-ette was an undergrad "studying" in Galway, Ireland, she spent a lot of time lugging around a massive copy of Ulysses purchased while hungover and visiting the Dublin writer's museum. What inspired me to read Ulysses was nothing more than being drunk on the streets of Dublin. Nonetheless, the book was so frikkin' difficult (if ultimately rewarding) that I took it upon myself to look down my nose at certain roommates of mine who were deeply engrossed in another thick tome of Irish life, Quentins, by larger-than-life yarn-spinner Maeve Binchy.
But all that changed when I finally picked up a Binchy novel myself, and I have to say I'm heartily ashamed. So that's the goal of the new blog, bookwormishness without judgement, snobbery, or hating. Just a plain old love of storytelling, on all levels.
On that democratic note, I present to you this chart:


IRISH WRITERS SMACKDOWN!