| From Booklist At 27， Michael Mullen， who had come to London from Galway for work， has lost an arm， a leg， and his looks from being struck by a motor car. He blows most of the compensatory payment he receives being a good-time Charlie before realizing he still must work. Recruited as a freak by a traveling circus， he returns to Galway， where not even his erstwhile sweetheart recognizes him. He publicly denounces the fraudulence of his own act and implicatively of the whole circus， destroying its reputation， before hightailing it back to London and a long descent， interrupted by horrific-comic crises offering a deliverance that he invariably spurns， to destitution and death. The only novel by a prolific Gaelic short story writer and journalist， Exile waited 84 years to be published in English and another 6 years to reach America. Like so much Irish fiction， as Colm Toibin apprises us in the invaluable introduction to The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (reviewed on p.1326)， it is about the Irish predicament of having to leave home to find any fortune to seek and， then， never returning. And like so much Irish fiction， again as Toibin imparts， it is only quasi-realistic， as coincidence and even hallucination drive the plot. Moreover， it is a masterpiece that is as fresh as if it were written yesterday. Ray Olson Language Notes Text: English (translation) |
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