Ok - I've been cutting it a bit fine finishing this month's book, and I haven't digested my big spoonful of Chuckie, Jake and the others - not least of Belfast him/herself - so help me have the Eureka moment as we explore Robert Wilson's book...here's my head-scratching questions to get things going:
- was this a love story?
- did we fall in love with Belfast?
- did we connect with the 'Troubles' and the changes in Northern Ireland, or was this in the end an 'everyperson' human story?
see you at 9pm...X
Hi -
Hope you're enjoying
Eureka Street. Just to let you know - the discussion will be on Wednesday evening (the usual 9pm) on June 4th. We're a bit busy this Wednesday 'coz we're selling our caramel treats at the Hay Literary Festival (hence Peter Florence kindly choosing this month's book for us). So hopefully you'll be able to join us the following week for a good old chat about life in Northern Ireland in the 80's.
See you then!
Hi
Just a reminder that tonight's discussion is about 'Black Girl White Girl' - which is
officially last month's book. As you can see - Peter Florence's choice is already up and looking intriguing for May. So you need go to Discussion Archive to the left of this page and click on 'Black Girl White Girl' and then on the comments of today's blog to join in.
See you at 9pm!
Robert McLiam Wilson was born in Belfast on 24 February 1966 and studied English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He is the author of the novels Ripley Bogle (1989), winner of the Hughes Prize, a Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Irish Book Award and the Betty Trask Prize; Manfred's Pain (1992); and
Eureka Street (1996), winner of the Belfast Arts Award for Literature. He is also the author, with Donovan Wylie, of The Dispossessed (1992), a non-fiction book about poverty.
In 2003,
Robert McLiam Wilson was named by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'
Eureka Street is set in the troubled city during the fragile cease-fires of the late 1990s. It's the story of Chuckie Lurgan, a poor, fat, Protestant boy whose life lurches from monotony into a fairy tale after his 30th birthday. Love suddenly comes in the shape of Max, an American girl whose diplomat father was killed within minutes of setting foot on Belfast soil; and money comes in the guise of a Government business loan. Good fortune almost comes via the scams of ready-to-wear Balaklava shops and leprechaun walking sticks, a running joke taken seriously by the rest of the world. Chuckie is Belfast--a mismatched dream; a battle to make something from nothing; a charmer with feet of clay.
Jake Jackson is his opposite--hard, Catholic and looking for the love that Chuckie seems to attract without trying. A realist among the bombs and roadblocks, Jake still has a poet's voice, passionate about his city- -"the air is full of regret and desire. You should stand some night on Cable Street, letting the little wind pluck your flesh ... the city will stick to your fingers like Sellotape."
This is a blissful bruiser of a book, with humour and affection drawing the painfully acute portraits together. "Chuckie's mother was a big woman, built historical, like a ship or a city … since he had been 14 years old, he had lived in quiet dread of his mother making her mark." Addictive, triumphant, sharp, sad and witty.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/1996/sep/01/featuresreview.review
We are huge fans of the Guardian Hay Festival which is on from 21st May to 1st June. (See www.hayfestival.com)
So last year, we loaded up our sweets and trundled off to Hay-on-Wye to tempt all those book lovers with our treats. Our suspicions about the combination of caramel and a good book going perfectly together was right (we even had to go and get some replenishments half way through the week!)
It was also a great opportunity to shout about the good work that Book Aid International are doing and gain them some new supporters.
So we felt it made sense to invite Peter Florence to choose this month's book.
Peter Florence is the son of the founder of the famous Guardian Hay Festival, held in Hay-on-Wye each May. He describes the initial idea in the following article - "In August 1987, a bunch of us got together around my mother’s kitchen table. My father had the idea of inviting friends and some people he really admired up for the weekend to talk, play and hang out.
He’d run the bilingual touring theatre company Theatr Yr Ymylon from Cardiff in the 1970s, and he and I had tripped around the world for the British Council with a Wilfred Owen show in the ’80s.
Wherever we’d toured, we’d loved the buzz of festivals – the energy and community of audiences celebrating together. And we both thought it would be good to do something together, at home in Hay."
If you'd like to read more click here:
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/whats-on/tm_headline=still-making-hay&method=full&objectid=19133149&siteid=50082-name_page.html
[quote][/quote][url]
