My least, least favourite of the lot of Dubliners. Thought this when I read it and think it still.
Ivy Day commemorates Charles Stuart Parnell’s death in 1891 and it takes its name from the Dubliners who, at Parnell’s funeral, wore the ivy growing by his grave in their lapels and this story is saturated with his presence.
It is Ivy Day and we find a group of political canvassers gathering together in a committee room( formerly Parnell’s headquarters) to drink, talk political stuff and wait for their money for their wages. We have a rendition of the poem “The Death of Parnell” towards the end of the story, a poem that basically celebrates Parnell. This poem causes the men to think about their lack of action, in general towards politics and history.
This story is about the death of Irish politics and the way it used to be. The Committee Room in London was where Irish politicians chose not to support Parnell as a leader in December 1890. This destroyed Parnell’s career, and, Joyce’s story suggests, the future hopes of the next generation as well.
The men in this story too are full of betrayal and have beliefs that go all over the place. They focus too much on the past so as there is no action taken. The men are also caught in the paralysis or circle of inactivity. They realise that political energy is needed and call on the spirit of Parnell but they know they will not be able to take this job on. Instead, they sit there, year after year, inactive.
I think I dislike it so much because of its content, the past, history and politics. It is also a highly male story. No women. No emotions. No thoughts for me to ponder.
Eimear Mc Bride was given the short straw with this story, come back to my next post and we will see if her unique writing style can deal with it!
Ivy Day in the committee room by James Joyce is published in Dubliners.
Counterparts, a short story by Belinda Mc Keon in Dubliners 100
I am really enjoying working my way through the new Dubliners 100 collection of short stories. I love it when I reach a story that I think is the highlight so far. Belinda Mc Keon is the highlight so far for me.
irishecho.com
Some reasons for this.
I love her and her writing. She is in the Ann Enright style of writing. Well observed, shrewd and sassy. This story is written in that way too.
the second most important thing to me throughout this collection is the fact that the author takes one of the nubs or themes of Joyce’s original and makes it truly into her own. A story that Joyce might relate to if he were alive now and a story that I can relate to and read side by side with the original or as a stand alone. So, that’s why this story is pretty genius.
This story keeps with the theme of anger and routine and the whole pointlessness of this type of office life but these ideas are fed through the media that is twitter. the words and style pick up on this frenzy and anger of twitter. Belinda, herself is an avid twitter user and she uses this insight in hugely comical ways. A depressing and angry tale. Love it.
Counterparts is a short story written by Belinda Mc Keon in response to the Joyce original. You can find this in Dubliners 100 which is published by Tramp Press.
How long have you been interested in writing and the literary world?
Alex: For has long as I’ve been reading I’ve been interested in writing and the literary world. I vividly remember ripping off Enid Blyton stories when I was about 8 years old. I would plagiarize the heck out of them and then collect them all in a notebook I had stolen from my mother that I would refer to as ‘my book’. My first ‘novel’ was written at age 12 and had a print run of 3 copies. I believe it was called War of the Heart and was historical fiction set during World War II. It was predictably terrible.
Gráinne: I have been an avid reader my whole life but was seventeen before I started writing. I had never really been one for keeping diaries or anything like that, but I started to write down random thoughts. It was a therapeutic exercise mostly, but some of these thoughts became scenes of dialogues. My first ‘novel’ was a shocking attempt at chick lit, which saw a teenager run away with her boyfriend’s father. Not sure what issues I was trying to work out at the time. Thankfully my work has become a bit more focused and less pervy.
The Silver Apples Magazine has quite an open and wide ranging ethos in terms of the pieces it wants writers to submit. You accept any genre or medium and you don’t mind if they are not thought provoking or well written. They can be literary but probably just need to be entertaining. Can you tell us what you do not want then as there must be pieces that are “just not your bag, baby”?
Alex: We really do mean it when we say that we are open to reading and publishing submissions from pretty much any genre. If they fit the brief and work well with the other accepted submissions then it really doesn’t matter if they are romance, slipstream, or just plain silly. We know what we like when we see it!
Gráinne: I can see how it appear to be a bit random, but there is a method to our madness. We love quirk. We love that piece that you are afraid to submit somewhere else because you think its too nerdy, or it won’t be understood. We love to laugh and to debate about what the writer was thinking when they wrote it, drew it or photographed it. And to believe that the thing they were thinking was bizarre, weird and probably a bit sick and twisted.
What would grab your attention in terms of literary writing being submitted to the Silver Apples Magazine?
Alex: There are a LOT of magazines out there dedicated to publishing solely literary works. We are not one of those magazines. For a ‘literary’ piece to be accepted by us it has to come with a little something extra – a quirkiness, an off-beat quality, something that would horrify your secondary school English teacher.
Gráinne: I don’t want to have to work too hard when I am reading something. Sometimes it is great, but sometimes Ulysses is not appropriate. Silver Apples Magazine is not a place to show off your writing skills. We know you have skills. We want you to show off your imagination, your passion, your eccentricity, in a safe space.
I love writing prompts and you do too! Where do you get your ideas from for prompts and why do you like this approach?
Alex: We like the idea of giving each issue a theme or a prompt because we feel it adds some cohesion to the magazine. Because we accept different art forms from a range of genres, the lack of an overarching theme could make the magazine seem a little disjointed or out of whack. Believe it or not, an incredible amount of thought goes into putting the issue together. We want pieces that will work together and create an entity that’s greater than the sum of its parts. We get our ideas by bouncing them off each other and seeing what sticks. We always want something that can be interpreted many different ways, something that can be subverted and analysed and picked apart by our contributors.
Gráinne: The prompts we put on twitter are really just fun ways of showing off our personalities. I think if we adapted the mentality we have with the magazine (if we like it we publish it, end of) without any kind of theme, it would get kind of messy. Sometimes we find ourselves searching for the theme in a piece we really like, before we eventually decide if we can’t find it, our readers won’t either, and that is not fair to the submitters who really embraced the theme and went with it, so we have to turn it down unfortunately.
What is your favourite literary magazine?
Alex: Ireland has a lot of really great and well-renowned literary magazines such as the Stinging Fly (which is beautiful and well worth a read). But for something a bit different, I would have to say that Albedo One has been a personal favourite of mine for a few years now. I even wrote my Master’s Thesis about them (in part). They are the only lit magazine in Ireland to solely publish works of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction. They have rejected me many times so you know they have discerning taste! Outside of Ireland, recent finds have included Quantum Fairytales (they give me serious cover envy) and, since I’m currently living in Canada and it is a very well-regarded Toronto institution, Tattle Creek.
Gráinne: I love Quantum Fairytales at the moment too, though my favourite in general is the Cork based magazine The Penny Dreadful. They have a great attitude and the stuff they had published so far is top quality. Their tweets are also hilarious. I have tween envy sometimes from reading them.
What book are you reading at this very moment?
Alex: Gráinne and I are reading a number of books in preparation for a super secret project and if we told you about it we’d have to kill you (no, seriously). Aside from that, I am currently reading Death Masks, the fifth Dresden Files novel because the last two books I read were Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughtry (which I did not like) and Frog Music by Emma Donoghue (which I thought was OK but not as good as Room) and I needed some easy-reading, vampire-fighting wizardry in my life. I swear, I pretty much read anything and everything! Oh and I’m also working my way through the backlist of the Hellblazer comics.
Gráinne: I am currently working on my first sci-fi novel and to that end have been reading books, graphic novels and poems that take place in another world. A world that couldn’t possibly exist, but you believe it does because the author laid it out beautifully for you. It had resulted in some really bizarre combinations. On my holidays last week I read Fahrenheit 451, three Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics, and Neil Gaiman’s new kids’ book Fortunately, the Milk. And of course, the super secret project books….
Though, you have just released your first issue, could you already describe the vibe of the Silver Apples magazine in 3 words.
Alex: Quirky, entertaining, fun
Gráinne: W.T.F?
In your second issue, you have given a prompt of “Box of Tricks” for would be submitters, can you expand on this or give examples of where writers could go with this?
Alex: You are asking what could lurk inside the Box of Tricks? That is a dangerous question with an answer that differs for each person. Look inside yourself, pull the rabbit out of the hat and see what else emerges, make like Pandora…Dreams, nightmares, comedy, tragedy, truths and lies are all found within.
Gráinne: When I think Box of Tricks, I think magic, mystery, all the plot twists and turns you can image for good measure. Anything could happen and anything goes. But I want to be lured from the beginning, and shocked at the end.
Thanks so much for your time, Grainne and Alex. Wishing you all the very best in writing and reading for the second issue of the Silver Apples Magazine!
Rozz Lewis, June 2014
Bio
Gráinne O’Brien is known for her love of many things, but mostly academics and Harry Potter. Graduated from University of Limerick with a BA in English and History, and an MA in Gender Culture and Society, she has spent the last six years bouncing between conference organising, office managing, fiction writing, academic writing, and blogging. She has been published academically several times. She has just returned from a year working for a start up in Silicon Valley, where she learned how not to run a company, along with a bunch of other tech information she will never use again. Her latest accomplishment is the soon to be published Good Madness: A Collection of Essays on the writer Neil Gaiman, which she co-edited with Alex.
Alex Dunne is many things – Irish ex-pat, prolific tea drinker and errant writer of SF & Fantasy. She graduated from the University of Limerick with a BA in English and History (where she met Gráinne and bonded over crosswords and shared nerdiness) and went on to obtain an MA in Literature and Publishing from NUI Galway. Alex has previously been on the publishing team of ROPES 2010 (the annual literary magazine of NUI Galway) and some of her writing was featured in What We Didn’t Know Existed (the anthology of the Toronto Street Writers) and Congruent Spaces.
Eveline, a short story by Donal Ryan-Dubliners 100
This story could have gone either way. As of all the stories in this book. Luckily it went the good way. Donal Ryan is a rather good writer, we know this. He has written two superb novels, which I enjoyed. He sees Ireland so he was the top choice for a retake of any of the Dubliners’ stories. He was given Eveline.
He subtly brings the old story of Eveline to a modern Ireland in a non stereotypical way. In this story we get asylum seekers and welcome parties. He adjusts and changes small details likes the sex of the narrator, who is a man called Eveline. This was a brilliant touch and only adds to the domineering force of Eveline’s mother within this story. In Donal Ryan’s take of Eveline, we get the full-on character of the mother as opposed to the father in Joyce’s. The narrator is feminised and weak, firstly with his name and we get some wonderful flashbacks to when he was little. Again, in a similar way that Joyce does with his Eveline.
Eveline meets a lady called Hope. These names are chosen so well! Hope is all that hope should not signify. An aggressive and bitter lady who is seeking refuge in Ireland, something she hopes Eveline might be able to help her with. Hope is quite the attractive, young lady so of course, Eveline wants to help her, The struggle between the guilt of leaving his mother and dedicating his life to Hope is something we read into in Joyce’s story but Ryan brings the story on further by letting the reader see what a hopeless, pointless deed it would be if he were to give his mother up for Hope. Indeed, it summarises the character of Eveline as well as Joyce could have done.
Donal can write short stories as well as novels. Damn him.
Eveline by Donal Ryan is published in Dubliners 100, by Tramp Press and edited by Thomas Morris
This story is the sixth one from the collection, In Exile. This story again has as its setting, the island. It uses a first person narrator as the story telling device. The narrator tells us about his life on the island and the influx of modern life coming to the island and the impact of tourists etc on his homeland. It mostly tells us about his grandmother who is slowly dying, a reference to the title waiting. We know by the end of the piece that the narrator is too waiting for something to happen to him and/or his island.The three are all linked and they are all waiting for release of death. Quite depressing.
I cannot say I enjoyed this as a short story but more of a reflection of the past being taken over by modern life. A reflection of life and death but I would not see this as being a short story as nothing really happened in it. Maybe, that was the author’s point. He gives a poetic and sentimentalised look at island and rural living and comes to a conclusion that it will all be soon over. The drama and the conflict are lacking but as a piece of poetic prose, it works.
I am thinking that this collection is very much centered about the life and death of island or rural life. Strange that this would not be tied together better in the summary of the collection as at least, it would prepare the reader in placing themselves. I am understanding what his stories seem to focus on.
I love clever titles. This short story has an excellent title, Put down. At first glance, it means little to the reader but as we read on, we see the title refers to the relationship between the husband and wife and the general action or conflict of the story.
We have two characters, Mc Carthy and Brid. Husband and wife, living in rural Ireland. There is poverty and we are not quite sure when this is taking place. The conflict begins when the conflict begins between Brid and her trodden on husband. She wants him to do something that is necessary to the running of the farm but he does not want to do it. By the end of the story, we see that Mc Carthy is so put down that he complies with the worst thing in the world and we can only wonder at what will happen to him after this story ends.
Billy O’ Callaghan is writing about country or rural isolation and the effects on relationships. He is mostly telling us about a relationship gone bad and he contrasts it with a good relationship, the only one that was meaningful for McCarthy. We hear Brid’s voice throughout the story, instructing McCarthy and we get wonderful tastes of the landscape and the weather from beginning to the end.
This story unnerved me, it was powerfully written especially the climax, which I won’t reveal. Worth a read and does what every good short story should do-a problem, a reveal of character and a further reveal at the climax with a nudge to the future for the character.
Last week, I had some questions for Mike Joyce, Editor in Chief of the brilliant Literary Orphans Magazine. I love the title. I’d love to have thought of this name for our writing group!
Now, we have James Claffey, Westmeath man and Fiction Editor of the Literary Orphans Magazine take the chance to speak all that is Irish and literary and orphan like…
Tell me about how you met Mike and how the idea for Literary Orphans magazine came about?
JC: I saw a call for submissions to Literary Orphans and was instantly intrigued by the name and artwork for the publication. The professionalism of Mike, Leanne, Scott and the L.O. crew impressed me from the start and when I saw they needed editors I threw my hat in the ring.
Tell me about your background in writing, reading and the general arts.
JC: Educated in Dublin by the Holy Ghost Fathers! A strong load of traditional literature and a good grounding in writing/grammar etc. I did my BA in English at UC Irvine, and an MFA in creative writing at LSU. I’ve been a reader all my life, writer too, but growing up in Dublin meant for me at least that I felt incapable, or not worthy, of writing. Since coming to America I’ve found the distance and freedom to claim “writer” as my own, and to tell stories my own particular way.
Let’s keep it Irish, who do you rate as literary brilliance in the Irish literary scene?
JC: Oh, living? I suppose Joseph O’Connor, Claire Keegan, William Trevor, Kevin Barry, and many others. I’m eager to read Nuala Ni Chonchuir’s new book, Closet of Savage Mememtos. I also recently discovered June Caldwell at the Stinging Fly Dublin launch of their recent issue and see her work as risky and fresh.
What were you hoping for when you put the call out for the Irish issue of Literary Orphans? What did you know you would be rejecting straightway?
JC: Nothing “Oirish,” as Mike says. I’m tired of the status quo and wanted writers who portray 21st Century ideas of what it is to be Irish in the global sense. I’m delighted with the spread of fine writers and artists represented in this issue and hope the readers found value there, too. I did tell Mike, “No stories about leprechauns or famines or Darby O’Gill”!
Do you believe that everyone can write or is there a level that certain writers reach that they cannot overcome?
JC: Hard to answer. At a core level I think everyone can write, even if it’s a simple narrative. There seems to be a stage where writers jut up against the rock face of criticism and expectation and when that happens, not every writer has the strength (or stubbornness) to forge ahead and keep writing. For me writing is about perseverance, about endurance, about pushing the pen across the page one more line and one more line again.
Which book is on your bedside locker?(I.e. The one you are currently reading, there may be a few if you are like me!)
JC: One Hundred Years of Solitude. Bonnie ZoBell’s What Happened Here, and The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake. I’ve always got a revolving set of books there, and magazines like “The Sun,” “Poets & Writers,” and “The Oxford American.”
Have the more traditional story telling in Ireland like Frank O Connor and William Trevor any place in the literary scene in America and Ireland? What can we learn from these authors?
JC: God, I hope so. There’s a body of work that forms the wellspring for many, and Trevor and O’Connor and so many others are fundamental in terms of “should have read” works. I’m immersed in McGahern at present, rereading The Dead, and glorying in his brilliant command of English. Current writers from Ireland are breaking those traditional patterns and writing in innovative and marvelous ways, like Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane. I hope we keep faith in the past and not forget those fine writers who paved the way for the current crop of artists like Colum McCann, Colm Toibin, Joseph O’Connor and Emma Donoghue.
In Ireland, we have some fine literary magazines like the Stinging Fly and The Moth that showcase new and established writing talent. What would be your favorite literary magazines?
JC: Tin House,GlimmerTrain, Spork Press, Alice Blue Review, Metazen, Connotation Press, so many, so many…
I love the fact that the Irish edition of Literary Orphans referred to the past of 1916 rising and the present day meeting of The Queen and our President in its editorial statement. Would Literary Orphans see the anniversary of 1916 as a potentially powerful time to celebrate difference and the evolution of the arts in Ireland? It may give you an idea for a future issue!
JC: Yes, I’d love to do a 100th anniversary issue! This is an important time in Irish life and the country is changing, both culturally and politically.
James, many people say that Ireland punches above its weight in terms of the quality of Irish writers? Is this true or a myth we have developed overtime?
It has to be true, right? So many fine writers, poets, artists and creative souls out there who hail from our small island. We’re a place where there’s been a historical importance placed on storytelling and literature. The old traditions of the Seanchai, the mummers, and the great mythological cycle of the Tuatha de Danann and the Fenian cycle. Maybe we steered our own lives in the waters of literature and writing, but there’s no doubt we are blessed with a creative wealth.
James, in your editorial statement for the Irish issue of Literary Orphans, you mentioned Love/Hate and Kevin Barry as the new social carriers for the literary form. What do you like about these two representations of Ireland and why? Are they true?
JC: I like the grittiness of Love/Hate and the way it puts drug culture and pop culture under the same lens. Sure, part of it is heavily fictionalized, but we are a nation of such dichotomies, wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, religion and secularity.
I think Kevin Barry pokes fun at popular representations of Irishness and brings his own skewed version of modern Ireland to a whole new place, an Ireland that is both Ireland and not-Ireland. Is anything true? I don’t purport to know what’s true for other people, particularly in terms of Ireland. I’ve been away a long time now, and return almost yearly, but I don’t feel that qualifies me to sit in judgment of truth in terms of either genre of storytelling, televisual or written word. What I do know is that we’ll go on reading and writing of and about Ireland for a long time. And for me, I can only write of the Ireland I know and have experienced, no other.
Thanks so much to James and Mike for their thought provoking and fresh answers. I now have lots of new reading to do and hope you will check out the latest edition of Literary Orphans!
The Write Show will be performed live from Carlow Central Library, and broadcast on KCLR on Monday June 9th at 6pm. Tickets are free.
After releasing its first anthology in 2013, WhatChampagne Was Like, The Carlow Writers’ Co-operative have turned their attention to writing for broadcast.
www.carlowartsfestival.com
Working for six months with one of Ireland leading radio writer-producers, John McKenna (whose credits while at RTE include numerous contributions to Sunday Miscellany and his award-winning documentary series on Leonard Cohen), this ambitious collective have assembled an eclectic programme of material for performance in front of a live audience (you) for broadcast by KCLR a few days later.
Contributors include Phelim Kavanagh, Bev Carbery, Rozz Lewis, Simon Lewis, Pauric Brennan, Derek Coyle, Maressa Sheehan, Clifton Redmond, Jonathan O’Brien, Brigid Johnson, Betty Ryan O’Gorman.
Expect drama, storytelling, music and poetry from a beguiling and hugely talented group, the occasional stumbled line, and some performances of chaotic humour and engrossing pertinence.
This initiative is funded by Carlow Arts Office in partnership with Carlow County Library Service, KCLR and Carlow Arts Festival.
This story is about a Miss Coral, a Chinese Principal/Director of an English Language School in China who hires a British teacher with a different attitude to hers and that of her country. This indeed shapes the story and theme and set the story up for its shocking and quick ending. I loved the character of Miss Coral, her manners and ethics and was devastated at the way the british teacher acted though he acted correctly for his own country.
This story captured me from start to end. The narrative style is perfect and the characters are perfectly brought to life. Anna Metcalfe is a relative newcomer and is working on her first short story anthology.
She was inspired to write the story, she said, after spending a year in China working for the British Council, “which sparked off a lot of ideas about cultural exchange and the different degrees of success with which different people are able to translate themselves for others and for different kinds of cultural environments”.
The fifth short story is Snowblind by Elizabeth Strout. A story that is set in the USA, it tells the modern fairytale of a story of a family, father, mother and children over a long period of time. I loved this story a lot. It includes many of the fairytale elements I enjoy like the setting of the forest, the character of the goose girl aka Annie Appleby, the wise, old Grandmother and the negative parents and magic. It’s about the way we remember our childhood and how different it actually might look when we are an adult. Poor Annie has some revelations to deal with by the end.
The Shoeking of Shanghai by Jonathan Tel
I didn’t like this story very much, it is a dreadfully smart story in that the narrative technique is a bit quirky but that jumping style put me and my tired, reading at night brain right off. This story is about a migrant who steals a pair of shoes and tries to sell them off except the long, long, long sentences with lots of commas and no full stops prevented me from enjoying this. I am sorry. You’ve got one chance and if I like you, Mr.Short Story, I may read you again.
The winner will be announced on April 4th. My favourites were all but one, The Shoeking of Shanghai. Therefore, I predict that it will win! The two that deserve to win are Nirvana and Number Three.
Excellent review for Lorrie Moore’s new short story collection in the Times today. They loved it but recommend buying her Collected Stories for £9.99 as opposed to this new collection for £16.99, which contains only 8 stories, 4 of which are in her Collected Stories. That’s what I’m going to do!
Nuala Ni Chonchuir reviewed this collection on Arena this week so here’s the link. http://player.fm/series/rt-arena-podcast/bark-lorrie-Moore well worth listening to as her review and recommendations are always spot on. I’ll be buying the collected stories or trying to read one or two online!
