Interviews, Orwell and The Year of the Jouncer
Recently the National Library of Ireland has been seeking ways to lose its image as the sanctuary of some of this country's more otherwordly characters. To give this great institution back to a far broader section of society, the superb idea of Library Late was conceived. This is a series of public interviews in which Ireland's most distinguished authors discuss their work with well-known journalists and literary critics. The fourth season has just kicked off.
Between now and Christmas, Kay Sheehy and Fintan O'Toole will be in discussion with novelist Claire Kilroy, author of All Summer and this year's Tenderwire, and the versatile short-story and screenwriter Bernard MacLaverty. The season will end in mid-January with a public interview with Roddy Doyle. All of these events take place at 8pm and Book Notes is delighted to inform you that they are free. Tickets can be obtained by calling the library but you must do so well in advance. If this were not enough of a treat, each of the interviews is followed by a sumptuous reception including live music. See you there. Visit www.nli.ie for more details or call 01 6030317 for tickets.
New Words from Room 101
Had George Orwell died from the injuries he sustained while fighting in the Spanish Civil War, contemporary literature would be hard to imagine. Few novels have such enduring value for humanity as Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. That writers of fiction are obliged to address injustices in their work is largely Orwell's legacy. It thus seems strange that many of the essays through which he communicated with the British people have long been unavailable. For four years Orwell wrote an opinion column for the Tribune and a miscellany of these has now been reprinted. Orwell in Tribune: 'As I Please' and Other Writings 1943-47 contains some of the writer's mightiest tirades against the abuse of political power and the threat of totalitarianism. The essay form gave Orwell free reign to champion the plain-English prose style with which he valiantly defended language itself. The volume also shows Orwell writing candidly about other things that meant much to him, such as nature, good cooking and the merits of a quiet public house. In a time when so much reportage is biased, censored or sensationalised, the strength of Orwell's sober style will be refreshing for both readers and writers.
Shades of Gray
A gentleman who has given Book Notes an indecent amount of delight is Simon Gray, whose latest book, The Year of the Jouncer, is out in paperback this week. Once one of the Angry Young Men who dragged British theatre into the 20th century, Gray has now become an angry and unapologetic old man. After his titanic capacity for drink – which ran to four bottles of champagne and a bottle of Scotch a day – endangered his career and then his life, Gray clawed his way back from eternity with a series of engagingly idiosyncratic books.
Gray's books belong to no single category. They combine hilarious anecdotes from a lifetime's involvement with the stage, moving family reflections and all manner of surreal personal observations and random digressions. Theses are woven together in no particular order but the tale that is told gets better with each calamitous episode. What makes Gray's books so very special is the impression that he is actually making sense of his own life through his writing. They are so unpolished and devoid of pretension that you know you are reading the words of someone who is looking himself fully in the face. Obtain, read and laugh.