The Copper Beech
by Maeve Binchy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Maeve BinchyEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1993-10-02
ISBN: 0440213290
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Dell
Book Reviews of The Copper Beech
Book Review: A Loving Portrait of a Rural Irish Village
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Copper Beech," by Maeve Binchy, is a loving portrait of a rural Irish village told through the lives of its ordinary town folk over a twenty-five year period from the mid-1940s to 1970. There are eight main characters and almost a whole village worth of other secondary characters. If there is one minor fault with this book, it is that readers may find it difficult to keep track of all the names and relationships. At the novel's core is a huge copper beech tree that stands in front of the old schoolhouse. At some moment in each character's story, this beech tree takes on an important role.
Each chapter is told from a different character's point of view, and each forms a delightful and complete story in itself. Subsequent chapters dealing with other characters' lives, manage artfully and subtly--often by mere happenstance--to reveal relevant information about previous characters and events. This new information makes the reader reevaluate and reassess what actually may have occurred in previous chapters. Thus the chapters intertwine artfully to create a unified whole. In addition, we manage to see many of the same events from entirely different perspectives.
Overall, this book was a very satisfying reading experience--a slow novel, with considerable emphasis on realistic character development. Binchy is a master storyteller. In this work, her prose is unpretentious and easy-going, giving the reader the experience of being there, in the village, hearing a series of stories told by a sage old timer. The author is at her best when she delves into the interior emotions of her characters--their hopes, dreams, insecurities, sorrows, fears, and disillusionments. But overall with this book, it is not the characters one falls in love with, but the town. In many ways this novel is a loving lament for a place and time that is vanishing all too quickly in this pace-paced modern world.
This is one of those rare novels that I did not want to end--I wanted the author to continue telling us about the lives of each and every person is Shancarrig and carrying their stories right up to the present day--obviously an impossible task. But the author did manage to put a satisfactory ending on this heart-warming tale, and I closed the last page with a profound feeling of peace, love for humanity, and a twinge of grief for the imaginary people of Shancarrig that I would visit no more.
Summary of The Copper Beech
In the Irish town of Schancarrig, the young people carve their initials-and those of their loves?into the copper beech tree in front of the schoolhouse. But not even Father Gunn, the parish priest, who knows most of what goes on behind Shancarrig's closed doors, or Dr. Jims, the village doctor, who knows all the rest, realizes that not everything in the placid village is what it seems.Unexpected passions and fear are bringing together the lives of so many, such as the sensitive new priest and Miss Ross, the slight, beautiful schoolteacher... Leonora, the privileged daughter of the town's richest family and Foxy Dunne, whose father did time in jail...and Nessa Ryan, whose parents run Ryan's Hotel, and two very different young men. For now the secrets in Shancarrig's shadows are starting to be revealed, from innocent vanities and hidden loves to crimes of the heart...and even to murder.
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