March 30th, 2006
John McGahern dies
I’ve only just heard that John McGahern, one of my favourite writers, has passed away. According to RTE, he died suddenly at noon in the Mater Hospital.
Very sad news.
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March 30th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
I’m a bit shocked. He was around where I work recently and was in great form.
March 30th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
I know, I was so excited about hearing him talk about his work at the upcoming Dublin Writer’s Festival.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
I am very sad about this, not a great reader but I was very touched by his life story and the way he was so quiet but moving when he spoke about the ordinary, and the extraordinary.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Had there been any indication that he was ill? It seems to have been a shock to everyone, although the tributes have not been slow in coming.
Btw.. The Rattlebag interview recorded when Memoir was published is still online.. listening to it now.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Last year when Rattlebag did that interview with him, they travelled to Leitrim to do it because his health wasn’t great. I remember Myles mentioned that McGahern hadn’t been well last year. The chap who owns Trinity Books in Carrick-on-Shannon also told me his health wasn’t great.
I think his health was frail but I wasn’t aware that he was suffering from anything specific. I’m sure we’ll find out more as the day goes on.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Sad to lose McGahern, though it would be worse if he’d died before receiving the acclaim he was due. If he’d packed it all in after the treatment he got in the sixties - and who would have blamed him - we’d have a lot on our national conscience today.
March 30th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
This interview with the Boston Globe two weeks ago refers to his treatment for cancer, which prevented him travelling to the States
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2006/03/14/writer_recalls_a_boy_country_coming_of_age/?page=2
March 30th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
It’s hard to choose, but what would be your favourite McGahern work?
March 30th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
‘Amongst Women’: less gloom than the earlier books, more drama than ‘..Rising Son’.
March 30th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
The Collected Stories is the one.
March 30th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Amongst Women. I read it when I was fourteen. It is sublime. It is the foundation stone for everything I have read and written and thought about since then.
I can’t believe this, Sinead. It is so desperately sad. He had been ill but he had recovered, had really fought it. We saw him at Christmas and he was in great form.
There won’t be his like again.
March 31st, 2006 at 11:09 am
“That they shall face the Rising Sun”. There was a feeling in that book of just below the surface emotions that I really related to.
Reading some of the comments here, I’ll be reading Amongst Women anytime soon.
This comes as a shock, I had no idea he was ill. Sad there will be no more John McGahern’s and no more books.
March 31st, 2006 at 11:20 pm
Sad news indeed.
I’ve always been particularly fond of “The Leavetaking”, but I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read of his. A real loss.
April 1st, 2006 at 3:40 am
A novelist and short story writer who believed in his craft and rewrote every sentence, paragraph and chapter meticulously before sending the manuscript to the publishers. RIP
April 2nd, 2006 at 2:15 pm
If you say so, Garreth, but can you quote something that’s a little more than mediocre? Joseph O’Connor in the Sindo today could find nothing better than: “Her hair shone dark-blue in the light.”
Am I missing something here? Rest in peace, John. You had a tough life, but don’t expect me to buy into the hype because of that.
April 3rd, 2006 at 8:04 pm
That sentence O Connor used in the Sindo made me cringe. There is nothing exceptional in it, nothing what so ever. You’re missing nothing Denny boy.
April 5th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Read the novels, not the fucking Sindo. Experience them for yourself and don’t take the shortcut of carping for quotes.
April 6th, 2006 at 4:35 am
OK, now that the funeral is over I can make a more considered comment on the oeuvre of McGahern. His first novels, The Dark & The Barracks are brooding autobiographical reflections based on his unhappy relationship with his father. His first short story collection, Nightlines, continues the brooding. I found his next novel, The Pornographer, unstimulating. I believe he will be read for many generations for Amongst Women & That they may face the Rising Sun. He gallantly recovered from the ban on The Dark and losing his job, and went on to live happily in his beloved local society in Leitrim. His writings celebrate what is good in rural society and expose its darknesses. The general reading public rewarded his perseverance by buying and reading his late novels in great numbers. For literary reflection on contemporary dysfunctional urban Irish society we need to go to the novels of Dermot Bolger and a couple of plays by Gerry Stembridge. As I haven’t read the Sindo article I can’t comment on the quoted sentence. What context did it appear in - a surrealistic reverie or a dream sequence or what? Was McGahern possibly remembering a 1960s Rolling Stones lyric that went “She has colours in her hair. She’s like a rainbow.” ? RIP once more. He was an honourable citizen of the republic of letters.
April 11th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Only seen this now. Sorry Garreth but to have Dermot Bolger and John McGahern in the same sentence is a travesty, and that’s with all due respect to Bolger. There is simply no comparison in the levels of writing. None. McGahern’s fiction is of another order of both quality and importance.
April 12th, 2006 at 6:42 am
I’m not comparing like with like. I’m simply saying that McGahern is responding to the social realities of rural society; whereas Bolger and Stembridge are responding to the grim dysfunctional realities of contemporary Irish urban society. I agree that in his final two novels, McGahern achieves “another order of both quality and importance”. Bolger and Stembridge still have many years in which to aspire towards a higher level in their themes. Literary commentators have often remarked that a lot of twentieth century Irish writing is concerned with rural themes. The urban dimension to Irish society has been increasing in importance and we can expect literature to reflect this.
April 12th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
I see Garreth’s point on this. McGahern did not approach contemporary urban society in his writing - the short stories and the Pornographer dealt with Dubin of the 1960s and 1970s in a memorable way, but only with a small sliver of that society, and they didn’t try to do more than that. I admire Bolger’s writing, but I have a lot of difficulty seeing anything other than novelty value in Stembridge. His plays have been dreadful. Apart from the novel published as a serial in The Dubliner, could you recommend any other examples of his fiction that I might have a look at, Gareth? I did admire him hugely as a satirist in the early 90s (and his work in the 80s was superb and sharp also) but I think he has sold out at this stage.
By the way, I would argue that The Barracks, The Leavetaking and a number of the short stories (particularly Gold Watch) also occupy a place of prominence in McGahern’s oeuvre. While we’re talking quality, importance, etc, that is.
April 13th, 2006 at 4:59 am
Can’t help you on Stembridge, as I’ve only seen one urban play of his in The Peacock (forget the title), and his TV movie about news of the impending arrival of asylum seekers in a locality and its impact on the villagers. I also saw a play by Bolger in The Peacock (forget that title too), which has an urban setting. Bolger’s two novels, The Journey Home, and Father’s Music, were interesting reads. I think Bolger is the urban Irish writer to watch. Thanks for your comments on McGahern’s other writings. Banville is probably our most accomplished living novelist, but I have hopes for future greatness from Colm Toibin and Joseph O’Connor, both of whom have written well so far.