I personally thought this book was a tour-de-force and I enjoyed it and would recommend it. I'm so glad this book was so heavily publicized; otherwise I might not have found it. This is a book for lovers of writing style. There's no chance Kevin Barry will run out of words and he uses them the way a jeweler uses gems.
"..She held things unsaid within--sly deposits--and it was her secrecies that enslaved him. They shared a telepathy..As they watched from their eyrie at St. Luke's, the winter crept in with greys and dense mists and the city fell to a drugged slumber. It was moving to watch the city lights burn through the riversmoke at dusk."
"She wanted to go to Maroc and live in one of the camps. She wanted a place that did not know the meaning of her grief.
"She wanted to travel to the far recesses of herself and see what she might find back there."
Two retired drug smugglers wait, and wait, and wait at the Port of Algeciras, waiting for the night boat from Tangier to land. To me, the story is kind of alchemy. (I thought: oh, this is Waiting for Godot .. not just the waiting but the metaphysical nature of Charlie and Moss's musings .. the way Charlie answers his own questions, the questions he poses to the informacionista in the ferry terminal). The patience of Charlie and Moss as they wait is a wearing combination of boredom and longing. By the end of the novel, Barry's "irradiated the dross of life," as my professor said, and granted Charlie and Moss a remarkable, unlikely resilience. I really like this book.
"..She held things unsaid within--sly deposits--and it was her secrecies that enslaved him. They shared a telepathy..As they watched from their eyrie at St. Luke's, the winter crept in with greys and dense mists and the city fell to a drugged slumber. It was moving to watch the city lights burn through the riversmoke at dusk."
"She wanted to go to Maroc and live in one of the camps. She wanted a place that did not know the meaning of her grief.
"She wanted to travel to the far recesses of herself and see what she might find back there."
Two retired drug smugglers wait, and wait, and wait at the Port of Algeciras, waiting for the night boat from Tangier to land. To me, the story is kind of alchemy. (I thought: oh, this is Waiting for Godot .. not just the waiting but the metaphysical nature of Charlie and Moss's musings .. the way Charlie answers his own questions, the questions he poses to the informacionista in the ferry terminal). The patience of Charlie and Moss as they wait is a wearing combination of boredom and longing. By the end of the novel, Barry's "irradiated the dross of life," as my professor said, and granted Charlie and Moss a remarkable, unlikely resilience. I really like this book.
