In the depths of rural Ireland, as a traditional way of life sputters towards it end, remarkably stubborn old man, Iosac Mulgannon, stands firm, defending a nameless and voiceless (and ungrateful) child, who wears, over his head, the skull of a cow. The child is believed to be a cursed jinx by the rest of the village. Certainly, in the child's presence, strange things happen, including violence to the old man. Things go missing - religious items from the church, even goal-posts - and the child gets the blame but is seems more likely to be a marauding pack of Viking raiders, possibly from Dublin (originally a Norse settlement) or from Iceland. At one point seven teenagers rise from a pool, later fish leap from a river. There is a confrontation in which the old man's hurl "scratches a spit in the sky" from which ash falls (this is later explained as an Icelandic volcano). The village is gradually cut off: the last bus service departs, the road is overwhelmed by a landslide: "The crumbled road like a fallen ribbon, lost in the grass." (The Bog Slide). Extreme weather plays a part towards the end of the book.
The occurrences lend the book a mythic air. Is the cow-headed child the minotaur? The third horseman of the apocalypse (famine), who rides the dark horse with the scales of justice in his hands, is referenced. I was reminded of the work of Alan Garner, such as The Owl Service, or Treacle Walker, but also of James Joyce's Ulysses.
The villagers and others - a brave woman representing child welfare, the foul-mouthed priest who attempts to exorcise the child - are constantly trying to separate the old man and the child. The old man resists all such efforts. He also refuses to open letters sent to him - "Letters can say all manner of things, but he has known them only to harm" (The Bog) - including bills and legal letters, which means that he is pursued by the bank who want to take the farm away. He meets all threats with violence.
I think (but I don't know it well enough to be sure) that there may be a number of references to the Irish legendary hero Cuchulainn, who as a young man played hurling (an Irish version of hockey although it might be more true to say that hockey is a tamed version of hurling), who was a protector of cattle - the old man is a dairy farmer and the book is full of descriptions of cows, usually suffering or dying or dead - and a great fighter who fought from his chariot (or Ford tractor in this case).
The old man's superhero skill is to "stand" or to endure, perhaps echoing Cuchulainn's death when, facing overwhelming odds in battle, he tied himself to a standing stone so he could die upright. His principal adversary, young John Allen (who seems a rather decent chap for an antagonist), is described thus: "He is not a man tested and tried, and therefore not worthy. He does not struggle as good men do, does not feel the hunger, pain inside. He is not a man called, but to which it is given." (The Old Man Disks) The implication is that the old man is the antithesis of these traits: "The old man has stood. He is the rock they turn the ploughs around." (The Old Man Disks)
The story is narrated in the present tense from the third person omniscient perspective. Most of the sentences are direct, short and simple; there are very few sub-clauses. This meant that meaning was densely packed; I had to read slowly and not infrequently had to read a paragraph more than once.
I often found it difficult to understand. I had to google Irish words such as geansai (a 'Guernsey' jumper), hurl (the stick used in hurling), sliotar (the hurling ball) and peist (an Irish monster, worm or dragon).
Furthermore the way the story is told in fragmentary episodes, often no more than two or three pages long with matter-of-fact headings such as "The Old Man Ploughs", meant that I struggled to assemble a coherent whole. Towards the end, there were moments when light dawned, but for at least the first half of the book I was more confused than intrigued which meant that I was less motivated to read on; this in turn made it more difficult for me to pick up the pieces when I returned to the book.
But it is not about the narrative. Even with the matter-of-fact sentences, the prose is lyrical, if dark, and its earthy texture made me feel as if I was stomping across a peaty bog in a pair of muddy wellies and a tattered geansai. There is a mythic feel to the book. But it certainly isn't an advert for dairy farming.
Selected quotes:
- “Young John's face collects gullies of shadows as it frowns.” (The Standoff)
- “He had extinguished himself into an early sleep" (The Visit)
- “The curse as much the child as the skin he was born in.” (The Rooks)
- “A field is a lifetime. So it is by natural law that when the headlands are reached a man who gives himself fully would not be measured as he was on the first thorough.” (The Old Man Ploughs)
- “It comes a point that you’re the last one standing then that's who you measure yourself.” (The Midges)
- “Clouds seal over the sky and dampen the moon. Everything in degrees of shadow and the idea of things and not the things themselves.” (The Old Man and Child Walk in the Dark.)
- “The past floods into the present until it's a struggle to keep them in different corners.” (The Old Man and Child Walk in the Dark.)
- “Night-birds flutter between branches. Lift into flight as tittering shadows.” (The Icelanders)
- “Town is an invention born of fear ... First man came and then man farmed, and then those who couldn't farm drew together and put their houses close to one another so as to not have the space to be of anything themselves.” (The Town Goes Dark)
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