Hello Gentle Reader,
When a writer is described as
having a ‘economic style,’ or employing an ‘economy of words,’ to their work,
it always rings with an unintended insult. The term economic is draped in dry connotations
of accountancy, with all the recording of debits and credits. A subject
completely deprived of a sense of excitement, glamour, or sparkle, resting
instead on the well-worn tried and true grounds of dependability and practicalities.
While when a writer’s work is described as ‘minimalist,’ it carries similar
connotations, leading prospective readers to summarize or assume the work is
simple, or without flare or linguistic brilliance, and more reminiscent of a
bleached bone, structurally sound and certainly the necessary scaffolding for
biological existence, but completely lacking in essence of life. The notion of
literary addition by subtraction, has always felt like an overused concept.
Hemmingway reductionisms looms and lurks within a variety of literary contexts,
with the continued less is more style being considered the benchmark for
greatness. While Hemmingway had his merits, blending the journalistic language
of reportage with its natural ease and clarity of vision with the artifice of
the literary, its continued proliferation and imitation of form and style as
the yardstick for greatness, has become cliché, overwrought and overdone, to
the point its cheapened and discounted. In a manner similar to anything mass
produced and imitated, its charm and quality depreciates before being refined into
a manufactured manicured commodity. Poets—and more frequently, short story
writers—are often referred to as maestros of the economic literary format, where
subtraction is the format and default state of the short story. Despite
existing in an otherwise terse and acerbic form, the short story is not a
format resting on the butcher’s block waiting to be trimmed, severed, and cut
back. The short story is not a voracious vulture’s soliloquy. The short story
is a form for mastery. It’s not the tadpole of prose; the juvenile scribblers
workbook; or the apprenticeship of the writer. The short story is a form requiring
the technical expertise of a clockmaker, in order to understand the intricacies
and details to propel the narrative forward; while incorporating a jeweler’s
eye for finish and presentation.
Claire Keegan is a virtuoso of
short stories technical brilliance. Keegan knows when to utilize a draughtman’s
touch, etching out a hardedge line bold and defined, and then moving to a faint
shading, ghostly impressions fading into insinuation. The craftsman brilliance
is beautiful, and while the language maintains precision to the point of being
lean, it is by no means the product of a misers’ penny-pinching economic
principles. Keegan knows when to define and when to insinuate; how a striking
image is enough to set the scene without being burdened by details; while being
a writer of immense empathetic capacity, fleshing out characters with human
contrariness. Still, as a writer, Claire Keegan understands the mechanical
operations of narrative and form. Reading Keegan provides textbook examples of
foreshadowing and expertise in tension. Perhaps this is due to Keegan’s own
role as a teacher, where she deconstructs a short story or sentence allowing
her students to pull back the curtains revealing all the gears and pullies at
work maintaining the narrative. Though Claire Keegan is considered a
contemporary master of the Irish Short Story tradition, with her reputation established
with two brutal short story collections “Antarctica,” and “Walk the Blue
Fields,” both were applauded for being harsh and honest tour de forces; Keegan
has proven that her narratives are not limited by form, but are enriched by
them. In a similar manner to a pond, Keegan’s narratives surface area is
intimate in scope, but expands when reflecting the sky and concealing deepening
depths below. The generosity and moral vision of the sky and the lurking
mundane darkness, are two oppositional forces of Keegan’s debut novel “Small
Things Like These,” where Bill Furlong a coal merchant both embraces and
confronts these oppositional realities within his small Irish village, New Ross.
“Small Things Like These,” is
set in 1985, and despite being set almost forty years ago, there is a sensation
and feeling that New Ross has yet to enter the modern world. An atmosphere of
raw hardship and pitiless poverty not only shrouds the village, but is a bleak
defining feature. While time is stagnant, whereby one would easily hear with
regular assurance that the villagers adhere to ‘the ol’ ways,’ or ‘live a
traditional life,’ this otherwise conservative attitude have frozen New Ross
into a time capsule. Bill Furlong is a coal merchant, a profession brining to
mind otherwise Dickensian and Victorian sentiments. Though Furlong’s business
is diversified beyond coal (though it’s the bread and butter of winter) and
includes turf, anthracite, slack and logs; in addition to briquettes, kindling
and bottled gas. The novel opens with a beautiful expedited time lapse
describing the golden October trees lost along with the hour of a return to standard
time, and further stripped bare by the unrelenting northern November winds.
Despite owning and running his own business, Bill Furlong’s life is far from
easy, and as winter settles over New Ross, what can be described as the busy
season sets in. Everyday residents place orders for fuel, and Furlong provides
the product. Of course, the product must be weighted, packaged, accounted for,
invoiced, and then delivered. Despite having a natural talent and good head for
business, Furlong is a man not deprived of a rich interior world or bouts of
genuine generosity, having been the recipient of such sincere kindness, which
inevitably afforded him further opportunities. This does not mean Bill
Furlong’s life was not without challenges. The bastard son of an unwed mother,
both mother and child were spared the full retribution of their situation in
part thanks to a wealthy Protestant widow (Mrs. Wilson), who kept Furlong’s
mother as a domestic servant, and provided a warm and welcoming home for both. The
absent father remains a shadowing mark on Furlong’s character, as recounted
when visiting the registry office to obtain his birth certificate the space for
father was filled in with: “unknown,” which the clerk handed over to Furlong
with a knowing smug smirk. As a child Furlong remembers the unknown and absent
father makes him a target, as in the incident when the other boys at his school
covered the back of his coat in spit. Still, childhood inevitably ended, and
Furlong married the practical and stoically sensible Eileen and fathered five
daughters. In essence becoming a respectable man of the community, and is
treated as such. His customers are loyal, and Furlong in turn tries to support
and forgive where he can; as Eileen acknowledges, it is Bill’s business and
tireless work ethic which has allotted them the breathing room to avoid living
on credit and dodging financial ruin and the creditors squeeze. Their financial
independence secures their modest luxuries and life.
A shadow exists on the
outskirts of New Ross, the Good Shepherds Convent looms in the distance, being
both a dominating reminder of the church in the everyday life of the residents
of New Ross, and sovereign independent institution of the community, providing
an education for the resident’s girls and daughters, while also operating a
laundry, which everyone sends there linens up to, as it comes back as if new.
Despite the good in its name, and its presentation of being a pinnacle member
of the community, the convent was also notorious with nefarious whispers
discussed regarding the laundry business and the wayward girls it supposedly
saved and employed. When Bill Furlong is to make a delivery to the convent, he
is reminded of an earlier incident, when the heavenly principled institution
found itself slightly exposed. In an inner garden and orchard, Bill Furlong is
confronted by one of the charges of the convent, a poor desperate waif who begs
him to help her escape, if only so she could kill herself, fling herself into
the River Barrow and be done with the whole ordeal. In a manner fitting any man
of good grace, Bill is unobliging of the request, but shares his concerns and
even offers to help mediate a resolve for the young woman, who crumples at the
sight and sound of a nun. It is then and there that Bill Furlong takes stock of
the caricature of Eden. Though the convent strikes a powerful and romantic
image, being compared at one point to the likes of a Christmas card, it lacks
the sentiment of goodwill and peace on earth. Broken glass coronates the tops
of walls, and Furlong grows increasingly suspicious of the locks in all their
formats barring entrance and departure from the grounds. When this event is
brought up to Eileen, she responds with the darkening (though understandable) caution
and stiffening resolve:
“If you want to get on with life, there’s things you have
to ignore, so you can keep on.”
Bill inevitably disagrees (and
for good reason) defending the kindness and resolve of the late Mrs. Wilson,
who not only spared his life, but also his mother’s from indentured
incarceration; while their lives were not easy or carefree, it was more
agreeable then the alternative glimpsed in the convent. This early introduction
into the convents harsh realities sets the stage for another climatic confrontation
with the convents open secret, and the nuns, whose supposed Christian good
nature and impeccable and unimpeachable moral resolutions, are not only brought
into question but are found to be bankrupt. The otherwise hallow halls hollowed
out, deprived of good will and charity and replaced with cruelty on an
industrial scale.
“Small Things Like These,” is
Claire Keegan’s debut novel, though it does not read like a debut. Its solid
and sturdy, full of succinct and crystalline language. Keegans understanding of
the technicalities and mechanical operations of narrative and literary form are
on full display in this beautiful novel. Despite being only just over a hundred
pages long, “Small Things Like These,” cannot be described as airy or
insubstantial. It’s a novel of careful shading and insinuation, but also
natural, fixating on tense moments and provide the necessary details to set the
scene and the table. The novel has a rotten dark underbelly to it, and the lack
of modern sensibilities and permeated the novel like a frost, curating the
atmosphere of austerity and life as a test of endurance and penance; but it is
full of enriching warm scenes, such as when the Furlong family makes a
Christmas cake. As for Bill Furlong, he is agreeable and good company. A man
not privy to the stoic marrow and resolve of the Irish, but who offers generosity
without any ulterior motives. Who kindles hope (however small and feathered it
may be), and perhaps slips into sentimentality and yearning when it comes to
his family. The fact that Bill Furlong was the main character and the driving
force of the novel not only propelled the novel to a sense of measured
optimism, but ensured it was not drowning in the tar of a dour vicious
narrative hellbent on not only autopsying the infamous Magdalene Laundries of
Ireland, but making it a blatant hit job. Keegan expertly dissects the church’s
unchecked power, but does not let the examination pull away from the human
elements of the narrative. Instead, Claire Keegan is more subtle, sketching
imagery and scenes to provide the context to the narrative with great success.
“Small Things Like These,” is an absolute gem of a novel, and perhaps can be
read within an hour or two, but I enjoyed savouring it over the course of three
evenings.
Thank you for Reading Gentle
Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
M. Mary
