A Long Long Way
by Sebastian Barry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sebastian BarryEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-09-08
ISBN: 0143035096
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of A Long Long Way
Book Review: For King and Country -- but for which?
Summary: 5 Stars
There have been many novels set in the trenches in World War I; this is one of the best, almost up there with Sebastian Faulks' BIRDSONG, my personal standard for the genre. What makes A LONG LONG WAY stand out is the sheer quality of its writing, and especially its Irish perspective.
At the time war broke out in 1914, there was a general understanding that Ireland would be granted home rule within a few years. So young men like Willie Dunne, the son of an officer in the Dublin police, joined up to fight for King and Country with the thought of earning England's gratitude and further advancing the cause of freedom. But others had no such trust, and felt that the only solution was to snatch independence by force; their view ultimately prevailed, but split Irish society in the process. When Willie is home on furlough, he finds himself caught up in the Easter Rising of 1916, forced to fire on his own people. Back in the trenches, he becomes more aware of the anti-Irish prejudice of the English officers and the conflicted attitudes of his countrymen. Trying to explain this in a letter to his father, he only succeeds in alienating him. By the end of the book, such concepts as King and Country have been replaced by simpler realities: comradeship, survival, and mud.
For Barry keeps his focus very much at ground level. Willie remains a private throughout, and the author never steps back to take a more exalted view. But the book's realism is offset by a poetry in the writing that befits a countryman of Joyce. He has an extraordinary eye for detail: "Even the leaves of the trees, so fresh the day before, seemed to have gone limp on their natural hinges and twisted about sadly, not making the usual reassuring music of the poplars along the roadside, but a dank, dead, metallic rustling, as if every drop of sap had been replaced with a dreadful poison." The account of the first appearance of the strangely beautiful yellow cloud that precedes this is the first of many magnificent set pieces in the novel. Others include the Easter Rising, a regimental boxing match, several suitably bewildering battles, and the lovely oasis of a visit that Willie pays to the country home of his former captain towards the end of the book.
By the time the War ends, very few of Willie's original regiment are left. Sebastian Barry makes no attempt to suggest that death on such a scale is justified by some higher cause; no writer on the First War can do that with much honesty. But even as he questions notions of patriotism, he does succeed in portraying the War as a personal spiritual journey; the book ends with a quality of acceptance that does at least offer some kind of consolation.
Summary of A Long Long Way
With acclaimed works like The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, Irish author Sebastian Barry has earned a reputation as a ?master storyteller? (The Wall Street Journal). In A Long Long Way he has created an unforgettable portrait of the horrors of war through the story of Willie Dunne, a young man who leaves his native Dublin in 1914 to join the Allies on the Western Front. Caught between the catastrophic violence he encounters there and the growing political tension at home over Irish independence, Willie finds himself confronting unbearable choices regarding family, patriotism, and the devotion he feels toward his regiment. A deeply affecting portrayal of personal struggle and the consequences of war, this is one of Barry?s most powerful accomplishments.?Barry succeeds admirably in creating complex individuals who find themselves trapped in a brutal reality... Beautiful and soul-wrenching.? ?Los Angeles Times
?The story grips, shocks and saddens; but most importantly refuses to be forgotten.? ?The Times (London)
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