Even in this age in which, at every fleeting moment, the economically-governed “progress” of global technology and commercial industry consumes an individual’s means to hypostatise the present - to capture an irrefutable vision of the place we hold in our millennial world with fire and eloquence and valour and violent intelligence before such a perspective is occluded entirely from view. In fact, it was easily one of my three favourite books of 2010 (the others were Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur and Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom), and like those two triumphs of modern American fiction, Holland’s novel is a lyric testament to the power of a single writer capturing the world through the eye of his quill. Patrick Holland’s The Mary Smokes Boys is one of these. This is an arduous task for a reviewer to perform with any degree of insightful consistency, of self-reflexive discernment, but it’s especially the case in the context of reading a great book. While we are at an inextinguishably critical juncture in which the function of reviewing contemporary literature demands a sincere reassessment within the aperture of the global media - do we readers succumb to engaging in a measured and industrious critique for the underlying purpose of endorsement, of publishing promotions, of exclusively contributing to the generation of future book sales, without an oblique investment in actually framing the literature in the context of its substance? - one must always be wary of the motivations of journalistic hyperbole. As Grey's, Eccleston's and Irene's lives are put at stake his allegiances falter and the world of Mary Smokes slips into a heightened state of darkness and threat.With the passion of Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights and the distilled beauty of Ondaatje Patrick Holland captures the fragility and grace of small town life and how one fateful moment can forever alter the course of our lives. The consequences seem set to fall on Greys' closest friend, Ook' Eccleston. A rash gamble by Grey and Irene's broken father means he and the Mary Smokes boys must steal horses to ensure Irene's safety. He becomes obsessed with protecting her purity and innocence.Īlso with his mother gone and his father turned to drink, Grey begins running with the wild boys, horse-handlers and fox hunters and part-time timber workers - members of a small, vanishing tribe who find themselves caught between an old relationship with place and a new one that is exemplified by the highway that threatens their town. This prayer, Grey believes is answered in his sister Irene. Grey prays that his mother will be returned to him in some form, so he might protect her from the world as his father did not. Grey's mother dies giving birth to his sister Irene and the tragedy haunts his life in the small town of Mary Smokes.
0 kommentar(er)
