A TOWN IN ULSTER
IN A HARBOUR GREEN, by Benedict Kiely; Jonathan Cape, London. LTHOUGH the shadow of James Joyce’s Ulysses lies over the whole of English literature it lies more particularly over Irish writing. If it has not exhausted the nuances of Irish speech it has at least almost completely explored them. And yet, in the face of this, one can no longer think of Ulysses as "a novel to end all novels" or even, paradoxically, all Irish novels. Benedict Kiely is familiar with Joyce, but fie is no imitator. His material makes a different demand. If he has borrowed anything it is in technique; and, in the case of Joyce, this is surely more than legitimate. This is a novel set in Ulster. It is extensive in design and it aims high. It opens with the taking of a school photograph (a high standard of prose which the author does not elsewhere achieve in this novel), and between that moment and our next glimpse of the photograph we run the jerky gambit of human passion: murder, flood, «seduction, rape, theft, suicide-and politics, and amateur theatricals. And yet this novel is not one of those usually labelled "real- ist." Benedict Kiely encompasses his themes through his characters and weaves the separate elements into a single pattern, into a novel about an Ulster town of 6,000 people, The monotony, the discontent, the friction and the undercurrents of feeling: all are here, with that mocking folk-poetry of expression one has’ come to look for in an Irish novel. The main criticism of this novel, perhaps not a very serious one, lies in its lack of subtlety. This lack is not counteracted by the serious and careful writing. The characters are numerous and varied, at times so numerous that they tend to run off with the story. With too much to consider, with too much variety, the author has ‘allowed his central situation to suffer. But for all this In a Harbour Green is competent and readable, and worth consideration for the peculiarly Irish quality of its humour and its
metaphor.
M.
D.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 551, 13 January 1950, Page 15
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351A TOWN IN ULSTER New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 551, 13 January 1950, Page 15
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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