Listen closely. Come closer. I know this blog barely creeps along and you barely have time to read. But you must read this book. If you have to borrow it, do so. Borrow it from the library or steal it from a friend. I have been trying to think of words to describe this book, but it has left me speechless. I have it sitting on my desk as a talisman to brilliant writing. I am even hoping to read it again when I have the time.
Forget the insipid cover and that any journalists who talk with O'Connor cannot resist mentioning his sister Sinead.
Ghost Light tells the story of Molly Allgood and her relationship with Irish Playwright J. M Synge. It is partially based on fact. But it doesn't matter whether you know anything about them at all for the language makes you savour the words and read slowly, lingering in images and turns of phrase.It reminds me a little of The Hours in that way, striking one silent and still. Quiet with awe. To me that Synge is someone I admire and Dublin a city I love, only arrested me more.
O' Conner writes:
"To write fiction based on real people and those they loved is a morally ambiguous enterprise, to say the least. Ghost Light is a work of the imagination, frequently taking immense liberties with fact. The experiences and personalities of the real Molly and Synge differed from those of my characters in numerous ways. Yeats and Lady Gregory and Sean O’Casey appear in the book too, no doubt in forms some biographers won’t like. Then again, these giants often said they had fanned their fictions from the sparks of real life, renaming the people who had inspired their stories. The practice was sometimes a camouflage, sometimes a claim of authenticity. It was an option I considered carefully but decided against in the end, and so I dare to ask the forgiveness of these noble ghosts of world literature for not changing the names of the innocent".
Do read.
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