The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty

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Their own circumstances are pinched, that's the truth. Tom rises with the lark if there ever were a lark in John Street and off he goes with a dapper air to the lunatic asylum to stitch suits for the madmen. That is and lately he has been giving them a touch of the new music, the ragtime and the like, that the Negramen of famed America play, because there is a call for it, a call. His father gets in the music in exciting batches, it comes from New

This novel devastates me in the same way this song always has: to ever be a wanderer in this world, by nature of birth, of accident, of fate. And to know that every mistake, no matter how small or insignificant will always count against you, even to yourself. Not only does the world not forgive, but you can't begin to forgive yourself. It is also a book that, like life, is peopled by strange, often ghostly, minor characters, whose impact on the two main characters is far-reaching. This being an Irish novel of remembering, the most unsettling is a priest, the aptly named Father Gaunt, an unwittingly cruel man in thrall to his own power, a pious meddler in the lives of others. Barry, a dapper dresser who looks like he might be related to WB Yeats, is a great interviewee. He tends to talk as he writes, in sentences full of beautiful imagery. 'History,' he says, 'has always seemed to me to be an intoxication of facts and it is in the ever-present ruins of history that I work.' Like Sebastian Barry’s other book that I read, “Days Without End,” I had trouble comprehending the dense prose, including the Irish slang, strange idioms, arcane vocabulary, and cryptic expressions. My reading progress was glacially slow until I realized I was reading epic poetry parading as prose.Lagos, Sligo — Harcourt casually remarks that they are simply permutations of the same word — a coincidence, perhaps, but ominous nonetheless. Whether in the Balkan states or Ireland, Nigeria or Southeast Asia, the old colonial regimes are toppling in a worldwide convulsion of nationalism. The reader gets the distinct impression that Barry has weighed the human cost of modern nation-building in the balance and found it a poor bargain. Ultimately, nations, states, and political factions have no demarcation in Eneas's atlas of the heart; human relationships, such as the lifelong friendship Eneas forms with Harcourt, are all that constitutes "home." Sharon from NYC: Have you read either of the McCourt brothers' book? What is your take with the fascination with the topic here in the States? Roseanne, Eneas's sister-in-law, is a mysterious character with whom Eneas seems to share a deep but elusive connection. What does she represent in the story, and what does her relationship with Eneas tell us about him?

Roseanne, Eneas’s sister-in-law, is a mysterious character with whom Eneas seems to share a deep but elusive connection. What does she represent in the story, and what does her relationship with Eneas tell us about him? Young Eneas made some unconsidered, casual choices in his adventurous sign up in the First World War, at a tender age, which had devastating effects on the whole of his life. Sebastian Barry: Hello Max. One of the best playwrights in Ireland, on God's earth for that matter, is a Wexford writer called Billy Roche, maybe you have heard of him. He was the bee's knees and the cat's pyjamas you might say in London and Dublin just a couple of years ago. One of the mysteries of the world is his work never made it to New York. Actually your question opens up a whole mystery, why some things reach America and some don't. Another writer is Dermot Bolger, very well known here, a writer from Finglas originally. Did his book The Journey Home reach America? I don't know, perhaps. It is a masterpiece. Tom Murphy is a playwright of the stature of Brian Friel. Michael Hartnett is a poet of poets. Irish writers sometimes aspire towards America in a very interesting way, very different say to how they may think about England, although England can seem important to an Irish writer. America is like going home to a place you have never been. Maybe it is because of those millions that suffered in Ireland and went there, and a book desires to follow them out and provide some reading that might be both strange and familiar.Life, Eneas, life keeps me awake -- don't it you? Here, boy, let me play you a tune I was given last night, by Tom Mangan of Enniscrone ...' And he's reaching again for the tin whistle. What Sebastian Barry conveys, more than anything else in these three novels, is the endless human capacity for cruelty, but also love. And how the former too often outweighs the latter. Besides being a critically-acclaimed novelist, Sebastian Barry is a talented playwright and as many passages sprinkled throughout his prose demonstrate, he is also a gifted poet. The style of this book is interesting. Although third person narrative, it exists as a kind of stream of consciousness, so the reader feels as if they are sitting inside Eneas’ being, even if the author is writing about he, him, Eneas. At times, whilst being firmly rooted in visceral reality, in particularly violent times, there is almost a transcendental sense of numinosity and immanence going on

Tim from New York City: How many people in Southern Ireland really went and fought in WWI? Did you research this type of thing?The clothes one wears, and the people who produce them, are important concepts in the book. There are vivid descriptions of men in dark coats; Eneas’s father is a tailor by trade; and much is made of the blue suit that Eneas dons late in the story. How does the author’s use of the clothing motif contribute to our understanding of the characters, and the changes some of them undergo? When I was looking for a name that I could use in my book, I was having difficulty finding something. One night I was watching television and on the news was an account of a car accident in the midlands. One of the witnesses was a local man and his name appeared briefly on the screen. . . Eneas McNulty. It surprised me that the name Aeneas had survived in Ireland, but when you consider the old hedge schools, whose penniless masters spoke more Latin and Irish than English, perhaps it’s not so surprising. It seemed the right name for an Irish wanderer. But as you can see, these informal parallels are a world away from Joyce, who modelled his book so intently and masterfully and artfully on the Greek structure. Had their not been a universal theme, the writing alone would have made this a worthwhile read. It has to be read slowly. The Irish dialect is used liberally, and I learned a good bit of Irish slang and profanity over the course of the read. The author used mini-themes as well, little smells, or feelings, or sounds that later tied the story together to a very satisfying conclusion.