The Yellow House: A Novel

By: Patricia Falvey
published by: Irish Books LC 2006

    In my last entry I told you that I had started reading this book.  The great thing was that I put it on my Droid phone so I could read it whenever I was waiting in line, while Jeff filled the car with gas or while lying in bed, flat on my back.
As a disclaimer, I must tell you that I like history and I like reading about Ireland so The Yellow House already had a couple points in its favor.
    Very little of the book actually takes part in the yellow house that gives us the book's title. More than an actual place, the yellow house serves as a memory and a goal for the novel's main character, Eileen O'Neill,  inheritor of the tragic O'Neill history. Eileen sees herself as responsible for bringing honor to her O'Neill ancestors by bringing her family up out of tragedy.
    The Yellow House: A Novel is true to the larger Irish story, full of tragic disaster, passionate love and joyous music. Through it all we learn about County Ulster in Northern Ireland, first, as part of a united Ireland under British rule then as a central point for the violence of The Troubles as Catholic Irish people sought Home Rule and independence from Great Britain.
    Eileen loses her family to death, madness and dispersion. As she fights alongside her countrymen to win back the things she loves along with rejoining the character that defines her, she faces love and passion (not necessarily together) discrimination, hard work and true friendship. Through it all,  Eileen never let go of the music that is within her and ties her to her father and all the O'Neills that came before.
     I urge others to read The Yellow House: A Novel and to read it with a backdrop of Irish music to help set the mood for it seems that whatever the Irish do and wherever their descendants go, their music travels with them.
   As a follow-up I will soon read The Linen Queen also by Patricia Falvey for a more in-depth look into Protestant-Catholic relationships and a look at a predominant industry of the early twentieth Century in Northern Ireland, starting in 1913.
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The Yellow House: A Novel

Author: Patricia Falvey

At my sister's reccomendation, I have just started The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey.  The Book's setting begins in 1902 in Northern Ireland. So far it is interesting, if a bit depressing.  I expect the novel to cover "The Troubles" on Northern Ireland with a focus on the relationship between Protestants and Catholics under British rule.

I am just beginning the third chapter and will write again once I've finished the book.  If anyone wants to read along with me, we can discuss it in the comment section of this entry.  Just don't give away future chapters or I will be sorely disappointed.  


    

Little Bee

Author: Chris Cleave
Published by Simon & Schuster 2008
Review written by Nellie

Little Bee has two voices, that of a Nigerian refugee, a young woman who calls her self, Little Bee and Sarah, a writer from London.
     The lives of these two women collide in a moment of terror on a Nigerian beach. It is a moment that ties their stories together for life.
     The tale is a work of fiction that speaks the truth as it pulls us into the lives of these two women who must each learn her own identity in a world that seeks to define them.
     Little Bee has seen things and experienced events that were supposed to leave no witnesses. It is this experience that causes her to flee from her small world next to the African jungle.  She flees with her older sister just as this world, the world of their childhood, ceases to exist. Her co-conspiritor in the tale is Sarah, a solidly middle class woman making a good living as a trendy magazine editor who sees herself as not quite a wife, not quite a writer not quite a mother.    Their story unfolds as each woman is buffeted about by circumstances that urge her to claim an identity of her own, apart from the men who come after them.
     Little Bee flows easily from page one to the end of the book which is not the end of the story. It is a tale of horror about redemption and the strength of human character which may cause its readers to re-examine their own lives as each of us continues to fine-tune our own identity and how we fit into our world.
   I recommend Little Bee to readers of all ages.  It is would be a good read for a high school woman, though the scenes of horror and short sexual descriptions call for maturity and discretion. With its accompanying study guide it is a good choice for book clubs and discussion groups.

  

The Last Apocalypse

Author:  James Reston, Jr., published by Doubleday, 1998.

Reviewed by Nellie Howard

In The Last Apocalypse, James Reston, Jr wrote about the world at the turn of the millennium, that is, the turn to 1000 A.D.  This was a time of great transformation in much of the world, causing many Europeans to fear that the world was soon coming to an end.  Viking marauders were ransacking coastal Europe from the Shetland Islands to Ireland, England and the northern coast of France.

At this same time, Al Mansor  began, in his vanity, to bring about the death of Islam on the Iberian Peninsula.  Islam had been a great civilizing force, promoting education in the sciences, algebra and chemistry as well as encouraging literacy among the masses.  Before Al Mansor began investing all power of the Caliphate in himself, there was peace among the Christian, Jewish and Islamic communities. The ward that Al Mansor waged to make himself appear powerful brought distrust upon his rule and weakness to the Caliphate in general. He desecrated places and humiliated people  he conquered, resulting in the wrath of Rome which became set on destroying him and Islam.  With the death of Al Mansor, followed by the rule of his son, Islam weakened then withered away in Spain along with the civilization that accompanied it.

Christianity faces its own apocalyptic tendencies as popes ranged from weed to evil. Reston writes that the papal authority’s “dignity and authority was at its lowest point since St. Peter first sat on the papal throne.”  Many saw this corruption of he Church as fulfillment of Biblical prophesies  making ready for the Antichrist, the precursor of the end of days. This combined with many other “signs” lead many to view as eminent the Apocalypse of St. John 13.5.  Nations were at war all over the known world along with the great famine which begun in 970 A.D becoming desperate by the year 1000 A.D.

All these things brought a feeling of great pessimism  to people all over the European continent.

James Reston, Jr. covers these topics with intelligence and understanding, showing no prejudice in the way he deals with the events of the years leading up to the last millennium.

This is a book that is well worth reading for any history buff, student of religion and/or culture and anyone who needs to be reminded that history of the world is  often cyclical and that, as  a civilization, we humans we tend not to learn from our past mistakes.