The Dark

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The opening of The Dark immediately establishes the violence occurring within the narrator’s childhood home. It just so happened that the attempt to banish women from public life was considered the most convenient strategy for reducing the impulses of sexual temptation, in theory chastening the morals of Irish men.

The dark : McGahern, John, 1934-2006 : Free Download, Borrow

Mahoney in fact aspires to the priesthood, but as a world class masturbator, feels these “private orgies of abuse” would preclude him. It was certainly a different process, much quicker, but the difficulty always is in getting the words right. And, as I have already intimated, no social or legal construct is more central to the notion of home, and its demographic correlative, the household, than marriage.When he wasn't eating from his plate, he stared straight ahead into the big mirror, chewing very slowly. If I decide not to read the book, I am certain that your review will provided me with all of the information I would have got should I have read it. Human movement through space is nonetheless controlled and shaped by landscapes and built environments whose power is altered by the context of place. Althusser mentions in his footnotes to “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” that not only is the family an apparatus of state ideology, but it also has other “functions”, including its role in the reproduction of labor power and its production of a consumer base. It felt like a sea change in Irish civic consciousness had finally arrived, and the departure from the Church’s position was a declared point of emphasis for many Irish (and American) editorialists.

The Dark (McGahern novel) - Wikipedia

Against a background evoked with quiet, undemonstrative mastery, McGahern explores with precision and tenderness a human situation, superficially very ordinary, but inwardly an agony of longing and despair. It details the story of Michael Moran, an IRA veteran of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, who now dominates his family in the unforgiving farmlands of County Leitrim, near Mohill. In fear and shame you are moving to the death of having to describe the real face of your life to your God in his priest, and to beg forgiveness, and promise for there is still time. Once again, it seems to fit into a sequence, with the progressive male character most closely reflected by Luke, who left home, emigrated to London, and refuses to get close to his father again. Yes, we’re in ‘miserable bloody Ireland’ territory, a place well explored in literature, but rarely so compellingly as in McGahern’s fiction.

However, I didn’t find the switches in point-of-view jarring or disturbing; they were masterfully – perhaps too masterfully – handled. First published in 1965, dealing with parental and religious child abuse in Ireland, "The Dark" was banned by the Irish Board of Censors and John McGahern lost his teaching position. Patrick Crotty categorizes The Dark as a “literature of protest” in his 2005 essay, which traces the plight of children across McGahern’s oeuvre using the term to describe the protagonist’s experience of oppressions both localized and systemic. But – Kevin – although Moran was a former IRA man, I don’t believe that this is a book which is about the Irish question, except insofar as it informs the character of Moran. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.