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The Aran Islands Classic 20thCentury Penguin J M Synge Tim Robinson 9780140184327 Books

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The Aran Islands Classic 20thCentury Penguin J M Synge Tim Robinson 9780140184327 Books

People have often said to me that they find Synge's account of his time spent honing his Irish and collecting folklore on the Aran Islands to be one of the slowest and most boring reads they've ever encountered. I must heartily disagree.
While the work doesn't exactly "swing like the pendulum do", the rhythms of his narration are very much like that of the changing tide and the rolling of the waves to which the islanders have grown accustomed. Synge's narration-- like time on Inishmaan-- moves slowly and steadily, washing over the reader if one will let it.
Remember above all that this work is essentially a series of journal entries, meant to document the people Synge met, the conversations he had, the stories he heard, etc. Perhaps the book's greatest contribution to the world is as a document of a way of life no longer in existence. This book is also a document of the the Irish Literary Renaissance, and-- for its occassional pretensions-- should be ! considered as such. This text might also help to give greater understanding to any reading of Synge's plays, as he alleged that the story for such works as "Playboy of the Western World" were derived from tales he heard in the Arans.


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The Aran Islands Classic 20thCentury Penguin J M Synge Tim Robinson 9780140184327 Books Reviews

This book is a very dark glimpse into a dying world that once existed through all of human civilization. Fairies and giants and ghost ships are as much a part of these people's real world as is God and the police who come onto the islands to kick people out of their homes.

I do wonder, however, what Synge's intention was to portray these people as being so simple. He does admire their skill with the boats but he spends so much time with old men who tell tales that have no point that it's easy to think the whole island lives and thinks as these old men do. Yet the young men, Michael in particular, leaves the islands to find work elsewhere because he knows there is no future on those grey, wet rocks. And the other danger is that we get pulled into a nostalgic portrait of the islands that never really existed outside of the imaginations of these old men.

Still, there are moments that are quite beautiful and telling as to how things really are on the Aran Islands. First is the priest, whom we never meet but are always told about braving the rough sees day after day and risking his life as he tends to his flock. Though we never meet this man, I couldn't get the image out of my head of a man dressed in priest's black, standing upright on a small boat tumbling upon the waves in a fierce gale. I would love to have heard his story. The other telling moment was for the funeral of the young man. This was a beautiful and very sad scene where they bury him in the same spot where his grandmother had been buried and they find her skull among the black planks on her coffin. This image, coupled with the young man having lost his head at sea, is a wonderfully confusing image where the nostalgic sensibility of the old is placed on the dead body of the young that can't carry it to any future other than the grave.

Perhaps this is why all the stories end with absolutely no point because life is, to them, pointless. Life is hard, the women wear out in childbirth before they're even 20, the men drink and fight and die at sea for a pittance of a catch, or the lucky ones move to America and never come back, their story unfinished.
This was bought for my nephew and he liked it! I was so glad he was happy with the book.
Excellent history of Aran Islands.
IT'S BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED
A look at a by gone era by a great playwright.
Despite Synge's nostalgia filtered look at the islands for the saving place of all things Irish, his interactions with the local people are interesting enough to keep reading.
Fantastic travelogue that helped me understand 19th/20th century Ireland. I haven't been to Ireland since 2004, and I didn't know anything about the country at the time, but now I want to go back to Inishman.
People have often said to me that they find Synge's account of his time spent honing his Irish and collecting folklore on the Aran Islands to be one of the slowest and most boring reads they've ever encountered. I must heartily disagree.
While the work doesn't exactly "swing like the pendulum do", the rhythms of his narration are very much like that of the changing tide and the rolling of the waves to which the islanders have grown accustomed. Synge's narration-- like time on Inishmaan-- moves slowly and steadily, washing over the reader if one will let it.
Remember above all that this work is essentially a series of journal entries, meant to document the people Synge met, the conversations he had, the stories he heard, etc. Perhaps the book's greatest contribution to the world is as a document of a way of life no longer in existence. This book is also a document of the the Irish Literary Renaissance, and-- for its occassional pretensions-- should be ! considered as such. This text might also help to give greater understanding to any reading of Synge's plays, as he alleged that the story for such works as "Playboy of the Western World" were derived from tales he heard in the Arans.