I'm enjoying the book very much. The writing is excellent. I was sad to learn via some research on the 'net, that Nuala O'Faolain died from cancer this past May. I will definitely be checking out her other books.
In the book, at the part I'm at now, the main character, a woman, has just arrived, alone, at a cottage on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, and I loved these passages...
"Bertie was right about the cottage in Mallary – I would be happy here. I went in through the porch and stood in the room. It was warm and full of a powdery, golden evening light. And I knew from my childhood that the distant, slow sob, a disturbance of the air more than a noise, was the sea on a stony shore. This was a white room with two small windows; a pot of pink geraniums in flower on one deep sill. A cooker and sink in one corner, a small fireplace, an armchair, size-on-matting and an old rug over it in front of the fire. A table and two chairs, a picture of the Sacred Heart and a little red lamp on the wall. A bathroom down a step broken through the thick rear wall and electric space heaters were signs of the modern world. Otherwise, this was a house outside time. I look down at my feet on the matting; I could hardly believe that they had brought me here."
I've wanted to visit Ireland, and that description makes me wish to be there (sans the long plane ride, however... that, plus time & money means I'll be reading about Ireland instead).
I also liked this part...
"I went out with my coat over my nightdress and followed the restlessness in the air to the sea, where it came in across a rocky shore to gnaw at the eroded edge of the field, not one hundred yards from the cottage… to be on grass beside the sea again. But the sea at Shore Road is very quiet; a sheen on the horizon for most of the day. Here, there was constant vitality. There was a shower so ethereal that I only realized it was passing from seeing the pock marks from the rain drops on the silky surface of the water, swelling strong and calm, the rain drop marks forming and re-forming. Then a wind full of sun followed the shower. I saw the swell begin to break into waves. The wind blew stronger, and the waves began to lift and curl. My hair blew into my face, and I turned and a gust blew me, laughing with joy, back to the house."
I'm sure I spelled "Mallary" incorrectly, and I couldn't come up with any city in Ireland with that spelling or a variation of it. Probably, O'Faolain used a make-believe location for her book. Also, I couldn't find "size-on matting" on a search, and I'm not sure I'm spelling that correctly, either. But it got me going on a mad Google image search... I meant to give credit to where I got these photos from, but I copied out so many that I lost track. Anyway, I got all of these photos from Google image searches, all with the word "Ireland" or "Irish" in them... I wanted to get a look at what that book was making me think of, and also I totally didn't know what peat for a fire looked like, so off I went...
The Atlantic coast of Ireland...
Stony shore...
Irish cottage...
Pink geraniums on a window sill...
Cozy fireplace with a cozy armchair...
Peat fire burning...
The Sacred Heart...
And just because I went way off into cutting and drying peat, or turf, in Ireland...
So now after looking at these photos, go back and read the passages again.
Neat, huh.
Wish I could do a scratch 'n sniff of a peat fire... some day, I'm sure...
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