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A Guest at the Feast: Colm Toibin

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And the king having entered in to see those reclining, he beheld a man there not being dressed in wedding clothes. In one of the essays in A Guest at the Feast, Colm Tóibín declares: “God represents a real problem for the novelist. The novel is happier in a secular space.” He is writing about Marilynne Robinson, a writer skilled, as he says, at “making religious thought easy” – easy for the reader, however unbelieving, to accept. It is a skill he admires. Yet his own novels hardly inhabit a “secular space”. Catholicism is a live presence in all the ones set in Ireland, while his interest in Christian myth even led him, in The Testament of Mary, to create the first-person narrative of Jesus’s mother as she nears death.

When you are invited by anyone to a marriage feast, do not sit in the best seat, since perhaps someone more honorable than you might be invited by him, When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast ( F) in the kingdom of God.” ( G) Colm Tóibín has written superb novels…but if you’ve only read his fiction, you’ve been missing out on a wealth of wonderful essays and criticism….Not to be missed.” — LitHub The middle portion of the book is more about the Roman Catholic Church and the popes of the latter part of the the 20th and the first part of the 21st centuries. While this part of the book might be interesting to someone who grew up Catholic. For me, it was difficult to stay awake listening to the author’s reading of the book, though he reads with a lovely Irish brogue. The first essay has one of the best opening lines of an essay ever, I won't reprint it, read it yourself. The inner thirteen year- old in me giggled like Beavis and Butthead, the man of a certain age in me went wufff. This piece is also my favorite piece, probably my one of my top five essays, not just for the blue opening, but the subject matter, Tóibín's dealing with cancer. Sadly this is subject that many will deal, have dealt with, or in my case have family members go through. The essay is funny, smart, informative, and again beautifully written with many down moments, but a lot of people aren't as bad as we think they are. From there Tóibín discusses growing up in County Wexford, his education with the priests, many who were found to be serial abusers later on, and the changes that he saw in the cultural and spiritual life in people. There are more essays on the popes, history and the changes in homosexuality in Ireland, literature and a quarantine essay to fill out the collection.

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When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, don’t sit in the place of honor, because a more distinguished person than you may have been invited by your host.

Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, In the penultimate essay of A Guest at the Feast, Colm Tóibín quotes Seamus Heaney on the Irish writer John McGahern: “[His] imagination is ruminant. It chews the cud of the past, digests and redigests it, interrogates it for its meaning, savours it for its bittersweet recurrence.” It is a striking quote, not just for its pinpoint reading of McGahern’s style, but for the fact that the same can be said of Tóibín’s writing. The Wexford author’s abiding interest in history, both personal and political, can be seen across his oeuvre.When you are invited by a man to a banquet house, do not go seat yourself at the best seat, lest it may be that he will appoint a man there who is more honorable than you.”

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