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City of Bohane
Shortlisted for the 2011 Costa First Novel Award
Forty years in the future. The once-great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is on its knees, infested by vice and split along tribal lines. There are the posh parts of town, but it is in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown, the tower blocks of the Northside Rises and the eerie bogs of Big Nothin' that the city really lives.
For years, the city has been in the cool grip of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there's trouble in the air. They say his old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchmen are getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight... And then there's his mother.
City of Bohane is a visionary novel that blends influences from film and the graphic novel, from Trojan beats and calypso rhythms, from Celtic myth and legend, from fado and the sagas, and from all the great inheritance of Irish literature. A work of mesmerising imagination and vaulting linguistic invention, it is a taste of the glorious and new.
Forty years in the future. The once-great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is on its knees, infested by vice and split along tribal lines. There are the posh parts of town, but it is in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown, the tower blocks of the Northside Rises and the eerie bogs of Big Nothin' that the city really lives.
For years, the city has been in the cool grip of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there's trouble in the air. They say his old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchmen are getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight... And then there's his mother.
City of Bohane is a visionary novel that blends influences from film and the graphic novel, from Trojan beats and calypso rhythms, from Celtic myth and legend, from fado and the sagas, and from all the great inheritance of Irish literature. A work of mesmerising imagination and vaulting linguistic invention, it is a taste of the glorious and new.
277 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 2011
About the author
Kevin Barry
75 books1,039 followersKevin Barry is an Irish writer. He is the author of two collections of short stories, and the novel City of Bohane, which was the winner of the 2013 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 663 reviews
April 8, 2019
i do not know if you will like this book.
usually, i am pretty good with the readers' advisory thing - i have this innate sense that automatically provides me with a list of names of people i think would appreciate the book, even if i didn't like it myself. call it a gift.
but this one - i am genuinely at a loss. i know that i liked it, but i also know that i am a little bit damaged from having read it. like my brain has been mooshed a little and i have had a hard time readjusting.
so it takes place in ireland, but some future-ireland that is unlike the ireland i love, in fiction anyway. and it is in dialect. sort of. not the pitch-perfect dialogue of tana french's Faithful Place, which made me feel wonderful, but an invented dialect, complete with burgess-esque slang and cadence that is very jarring.
i mean, you tell me:
a pack of wannabe Fancy boys - fourteenish, hormonal, all bumfluff 'taches and suicide eyes, with the wantaway croak of bravado in their breaking voices - traced the hipsway of the rhythm outside the calypso joint, drew circles in the air with the winkled tips of their patent booties, passed along a coochie - eight of 'em drawin' on it - and they kept watch - so shyly - on the Cafe Aliados down the way
you see??
the Gant's humours were in a rum condition - he was about fit for a bleed of leeches. his moods were too swift on the turn. he was watchful of them. he had a sack of tawny wine on him. he untwisted its cap and took a pull on it for the spurt of life - medicinal. there was pikey blood in the Gant, of course - the name, even, was an old pikey handle- but then there's pikey blood in most of us around this city. have a sconce at the old gaatch of us - the slope-shouldered carry, the belligerence of the stride, the smoky hazel of our eyes; officer material we are not. of course if you were going by the reckoning of pikey bones the Gant was old bones now for certain. he was fifty years to paradise.
and usually that would give me fits.
but after a while, you kind of get into it. and even though the book expects much from its readership - understanding a ton of clans, geography, inbred feuds, unfamiliar expressions - i thought it was a great read.
but it is a bludgeoning one.
it's strange - stripped of its vernacular, the book can be reduced to two sentences: people fight. a marriage is tested.
that is it, honestly. but it isn't simply emptiness masked by linguistic cleverness.
the world-building is phenomenal. it reminded me, a little, of both Aurorarama and The Gone-Away World, but i thought it was much more successful than either. once you get into the rhythm of it, it is incredibly rich and satisfying, and with the other two, i had a lot of difficulty making sense of the world, but in this one, i felt more grounded.
but there were some strange decisions. why so much focus on the clothing? i swear, there was so much of this, and always in this format:
ol' boy wore:
high-top boots expensively clicker'd with gold taps, a pair of hip-hugging jodhpur-style pants in a faded mauve tone, an amount of gold chains, a heave mink coat to keep out the worst of the hardwind's assaults and a goatskin beanie hat set pavee-style at the crown of his head.
it's a weird quirk in an already-quirky book. it definitely provides a strong mental image, but the whole name-followed-by-colon setup made me unhappy.
but there is a character named fucker burke and one named wolfie stanners, so that's obviously awesome.
fucker wore:
silver high-top boots, drainpipe strides in a natty-boy mottle, a low-slung dirk belt and a three-quarter jacket of saffron-dyed sheepskin. he was tall and straggly as an invasive weed. he was astonishingly sentimental, and as violent again. his belligerent green eyes were strange flowers indeed. he was seventeen years of age and he read magical significance into occurrences of the number nine. he had ambition deep inside but could hardly even name it. his true love: an unpredictable Alsatian bitch name of Angelina.
and when i read that, i thought, "maybe that is just this-book-slang for "german." but - nope. an actual dog.
indeed.
so, yeah. i liked this. a lot. but i do not know what anyone besides me will make of it.
read it and tell me, why don't you?
come to my blog!
usually, i am pretty good with the readers' advisory thing - i have this innate sense that automatically provides me with a list of names of people i think would appreciate the book, even if i didn't like it myself. call it a gift.
but this one - i am genuinely at a loss. i know that i liked it, but i also know that i am a little bit damaged from having read it. like my brain has been mooshed a little and i have had a hard time readjusting.
so it takes place in ireland, but some future-ireland that is unlike the ireland i love, in fiction anyway. and it is in dialect. sort of. not the pitch-perfect dialogue of tana french's Faithful Place, which made me feel wonderful, but an invented dialect, complete with burgess-esque slang and cadence that is very jarring.
i mean, you tell me:
a pack of wannabe Fancy boys - fourteenish, hormonal, all bumfluff 'taches and suicide eyes, with the wantaway croak of bravado in their breaking voices - traced the hipsway of the rhythm outside the calypso joint, drew circles in the air with the winkled tips of their patent booties, passed along a coochie - eight of 'em drawin' on it - and they kept watch - so shyly - on the Cafe Aliados down the way
you see??
the Gant's humours were in a rum condition - he was about fit for a bleed of leeches. his moods were too swift on the turn. he was watchful of them. he had a sack of tawny wine on him. he untwisted its cap and took a pull on it for the spurt of life - medicinal. there was pikey blood in the Gant, of course - the name, even, was an old pikey handle- but then there's pikey blood in most of us around this city. have a sconce at the old gaatch of us - the slope-shouldered carry, the belligerence of the stride, the smoky hazel of our eyes; officer material we are not. of course if you were going by the reckoning of pikey bones the Gant was old bones now for certain. he was fifty years to paradise.
and usually that would give me fits.
but after a while, you kind of get into it. and even though the book expects much from its readership - understanding a ton of clans, geography, inbred feuds, unfamiliar expressions - i thought it was a great read.
but it is a bludgeoning one.
it's strange - stripped of its vernacular, the book can be reduced to two sentences: people fight. a marriage is tested.
that is it, honestly. but it isn't simply emptiness masked by linguistic cleverness.
the world-building is phenomenal. it reminded me, a little, of both Aurorarama and The Gone-Away World, but i thought it was much more successful than either. once you get into the rhythm of it, it is incredibly rich and satisfying, and with the other two, i had a lot of difficulty making sense of the world, but in this one, i felt more grounded.
but there were some strange decisions. why so much focus on the clothing? i swear, there was so much of this, and always in this format:
ol' boy wore:
high-top boots expensively clicker'd with gold taps, a pair of hip-hugging jodhpur-style pants in a faded mauve tone, an amount of gold chains, a heave mink coat to keep out the worst of the hardwind's assaults and a goatskin beanie hat set pavee-style at the crown of his head.
it's a weird quirk in an already-quirky book. it definitely provides a strong mental image, but the whole name-followed-by-colon setup made me unhappy.
but there is a character named fucker burke and one named wolfie stanners, so that's obviously awesome.
fucker wore:
silver high-top boots, drainpipe strides in a natty-boy mottle, a low-slung dirk belt and a three-quarter jacket of saffron-dyed sheepskin. he was tall and straggly as an invasive weed. he was astonishingly sentimental, and as violent again. his belligerent green eyes were strange flowers indeed. he was seventeen years of age and he read magical significance into occurrences of the number nine. he had ambition deep inside but could hardly even name it. his true love: an unpredictable Alsatian bitch name of Angelina.
and when i read that, i thought, "maybe that is just this-book-slang for "german." but - nope. an actual dog.
indeed.
so, yeah. i liked this. a lot. but i do not know what anyone besides me will make of it.
read it and tell me, why don't you?
come to my blog!
Read
January 27, 2022I donned my virtual reality headset, clicked the Bohane game with the trigger button on my handset, and next thing, I was standing in the dark on the edge of a pier. A black and murky river gurgled beneath me. I stepped back into the safety of a warehouse doorway but such a fierce howling started up that I nearly jumped out of my virtual skin. There must have been a dozen Rottweilers trying to get at me so I moved away from the warehouse towards the lights of a bar further along the docks. I could make out some shadowy shapes sitting outside the bar and I lingered within earshot for a couple of minutes.
‘Set yer clock by him,’ said one, looking in the direction I'd come from. Was it me they were talking about? Did they think they knew me?
'Long Fella on his evening prowl,' said another. I looked back along the docks and heard the slap, the lift, the slap, the lift of expensive leather on the cobblestones. A tall figure emerged from the blackness, an eerie whiteness shimmering around him like a halo. This Long Fella in the fancy shoes must be one strange character, I thought to myself. Better stay out of his path. Sure enough, the cafe talk was about someone called Cusack who'd been killed in a knife fight and the bloody reprisals that were to be aimed at the Long Fella's 'Fancy' gang. Vengeance was the name of this Bohane game, it seemed.
The Long Fella moved away from the riverfront and I followed along at a distance, scared to be walking in his dapper footsteps but too unnerved to hang about at the docks any longer. We were soon in a tracery of small mean streets full of fierce looking characters but they all shrank back into the shadows as the Long Fella passed by. I could smell the reverence. There was no reverence for me though. Instead, people began moving towards me with belligerence on their minds so I clicked the thumbstick on my handset and aimed for a higher part of the city. Whoosh. Relief!
When I got my bearings, I saw that I was in a district full of ancient apartment blocks, more dilapidated than I'd ever seen anywhere. There were giant bonfires lighting up the night sky in the gaps between them. Then I heard a kind of chanting — Cus-acks! Cus-acks! — and around one of the bonfires I saw a fearsome band of raggedly dressed characters, all carrying the longest and deadliest knives I'd ever laid eyes on. They looked like they were gearing up for a major war! This was clearly no place for me so I hit the thumbstick and aimed for a different part of the city.
I landed under a sign that said DeValera Street. What the..!
The name De Valera combined with the name Long Fella can't be a coincidence, I thought. After all, the De Valera I remembered from Irish history used to be called the Long Fella. What century was this game set in? There were no cars to be seen, only a train track running down the middle of the long, wide street. The people here seemed more prosperous than those I'd encountered so far but none of them had a mobile phone. Then I heard a long screeching sound and a rickety train trundled down the track, stopping right in front of me. Out of a carriage that had two overlapping crosses above the door stepped a giant of a man. A big fella to match the Long Fella, it seemed, and I couldn't but be reminded of a key figure in the Civil War of the 1920s known as the Big Fella. This might well be Michael Collins Street, I thought, not De Valera Street! And that double cross on the train door would fit very well into the Collins story—plus all the faction fighting that was brewing.
I followed the big fella for a while until he headed out into the darkness beyond the city. There were no objects out there I could aim at, just a big slice of nothin', so I had to give up following him and aimed instead for the bunch of tottering chimneys I could see silhouetted against the sky on the other side of the river.
This part of Bohane didn't have a 1920s vibe though. More like 1990s Soho—with the gas turned up full. I soon learned it was called Smoketown, and no wonder! It was full of enticing dens of certain iniquity and I spent the rest of the night very happily. When morning came, I had trouble focusing but I did make out the date on a badly printed newspaper: 31st of October, 2053!
That discovery made me dizzier than I was already. What could have happened in this city to make the future look more primitive than the past? The mystery of the lost time floored me completely. I laid low for a while after that, in a very comfortable bar, it must be said, but soon there was talk of the infamous Cusacks descending on Smoketown to do battle with the Long Fella's Fancy gang. It seemed he'd roped in a third gang called the Sand Pikeys from out beyond the mouth of the black river, and there was going to be one godawful smashup right here in S/town. Should I leave before it started? I was kind of curious to find the big fella who'd disappeared into the big nothin' as I'd heard there'd been sightings of him in different corners of the city, but a knife appeared in front of me and before I knew it, my virtual hand had grabbed it.
It looked like I'd be staying for the skirmish.
I fought hard, and mean too, but the going was so tough that I thought I'd never see dawn...still, since you're reading this, you know I survived, so I'll leave it at that.
I'd love to tell you about all the double and triple crossing that ensued in the second half of the game but perhaps you need to play it for yourself. I don't want to spoil anyone's fun.
‘Set yer clock by him,’ said one, looking in the direction I'd come from. Was it me they were talking about? Did they think they knew me?
'Long Fella on his evening prowl,' said another. I looked back along the docks and heard the slap, the lift, the slap, the lift of expensive leather on the cobblestones. A tall figure emerged from the blackness, an eerie whiteness shimmering around him like a halo. This Long Fella in the fancy shoes must be one strange character, I thought to myself. Better stay out of his path. Sure enough, the cafe talk was about someone called Cusack who'd been killed in a knife fight and the bloody reprisals that were to be aimed at the Long Fella's 'Fancy' gang. Vengeance was the name of this Bohane game, it seemed.
The Long Fella moved away from the riverfront and I followed along at a distance, scared to be walking in his dapper footsteps but too unnerved to hang about at the docks any longer. We were soon in a tracery of small mean streets full of fierce looking characters but they all shrank back into the shadows as the Long Fella passed by. I could smell the reverence. There was no reverence for me though. Instead, people began moving towards me with belligerence on their minds so I clicked the thumbstick on my handset and aimed for a higher part of the city. Whoosh. Relief!
When I got my bearings, I saw that I was in a district full of ancient apartment blocks, more dilapidated than I'd ever seen anywhere. There were giant bonfires lighting up the night sky in the gaps between them. Then I heard a kind of chanting — Cus-acks! Cus-acks! — and around one of the bonfires I saw a fearsome band of raggedly dressed characters, all carrying the longest and deadliest knives I'd ever laid eyes on. They looked like they were gearing up for a major war! This was clearly no place for me so I hit the thumbstick and aimed for a different part of the city.
I landed under a sign that said DeValera Street. What the..!
The name De Valera combined with the name Long Fella can't be a coincidence, I thought. After all, the De Valera I remembered from Irish history used to be called the Long Fella. What century was this game set in? There were no cars to be seen, only a train track running down the middle of the long, wide street. The people here seemed more prosperous than those I'd encountered so far but none of them had a mobile phone. Then I heard a long screeching sound and a rickety train trundled down the track, stopping right in front of me. Out of a carriage that had two overlapping crosses above the door stepped a giant of a man. A big fella to match the Long Fella, it seemed, and I couldn't but be reminded of a key figure in the Civil War of the 1920s known as the Big Fella. This might well be Michael Collins Street, I thought, not De Valera Street! And that double cross on the train door would fit very well into the Collins story—plus all the faction fighting that was brewing.
I followed the big fella for a while until he headed out into the darkness beyond the city. There were no objects out there I could aim at, just a big slice of nothin', so I had to give up following him and aimed instead for the bunch of tottering chimneys I could see silhouetted against the sky on the other side of the river.
This part of Bohane didn't have a 1920s vibe though. More like 1990s Soho—with the gas turned up full. I soon learned it was called Smoketown, and no wonder! It was full of enticing dens of certain iniquity and I spent the rest of the night very happily. When morning came, I had trouble focusing but I did make out the date on a badly printed newspaper: 31st of October, 2053!
That discovery made me dizzier than I was already. What could have happened in this city to make the future look more primitive than the past? The mystery of the lost time floored me completely. I laid low for a while after that, in a very comfortable bar, it must be said, but soon there was talk of the infamous Cusacks descending on Smoketown to do battle with the Long Fella's Fancy gang. It seemed he'd roped in a third gang called the Sand Pikeys from out beyond the mouth of the black river, and there was going to be one godawful smashup right here in S/town. Should I leave before it started? I was kind of curious to find the big fella who'd disappeared into the big nothin' as I'd heard there'd been sightings of him in different corners of the city, but a knife appeared in front of me and before I knew it, my virtual hand had grabbed it.
It looked like I'd be staying for the skirmish.
I fought hard, and mean too, but the going was so tough that I thought I'd never see dawn...still, since you're reading this, you know I survived, so I'll leave it at that.
I'd love to tell you about all the double and triple crossing that ensued in the second half of the game but perhaps you need to play it for yourself. I don't want to spoil anyone's fun.
September 11, 2017
This is my second experience of Kevin Barry - I read the equally compelling and original but very different Beatlebone in January. This one is a mixture of genres that I would normally steer well clear of - gangland thriller, dystopian fantasy, steampunk and graphic novel cliches abound. What carries it is the sheer vibrancy and humour of the language and the many cultural reference points that echo the likes of Joyce and Flann O'Brien.
The setting is the fictional city of Bohane, on the west coast of Ireland and the time is 2053 to 2054, in a country that has become an anarchic battleground between rival gangs, loosely under the watch of a corrupt city authority and a police force that is largely content to keep the main players in place. For a futuristic setting, the reference points are surprisingly old-fashioned, in fact the dominant inspiration seems to be the 50s and early 60s, and many Irish traditions and cultural divisions survive in modified form. The language is a complex hybrid of Irish street speak and other influences such as Rastafarianism and the Catholic church, and the characters are all cartoonish and larger than life.
I found the whole thing surprisingly compulsive and satisfying, and although Barry's vision is a bleak, profane and violent one, dark humour is never very far from the surface. In some ways this reminded me of his compatriot and namesake Sebastian Barry's Days Without End, another book which shouldn't work but is sustained by the brilliance of its narrative voice.
The setting is the fictional city of Bohane, on the west coast of Ireland and the time is 2053 to 2054, in a country that has become an anarchic battleground between rival gangs, loosely under the watch of a corrupt city authority and a police force that is largely content to keep the main players in place. For a futuristic setting, the reference points are surprisingly old-fashioned, in fact the dominant inspiration seems to be the 50s and early 60s, and many Irish traditions and cultural divisions survive in modified form. The language is a complex hybrid of Irish street speak and other influences such as Rastafarianism and the Catholic church, and the characters are all cartoonish and larger than life.
I found the whole thing surprisingly compulsive and satisfying, and although Barry's vision is a bleak, profane and violent one, dark humour is never very far from the surface. In some ways this reminded me of his compatriot and namesake Sebastian Barry's Days Without End, another book which shouldn't work but is sustained by the brilliance of its narrative voice.
June 5, 2022
City of Bohane? You wouldn't want to live there. Question is, would you want to read about there? Maybe the following quizzito will help:
1. Do you like books about battling mobsters?
Y -- Although the setting is some weird fictional city and the characters are borderline non-human humans, this should satisfy your yen.
N -- Take a pass.
2. Do you like books with the specter of violence (mostly) and outright violence (lesser so, but still very much so)?
Y -- People have knives and they know how to use them, so look sharp and jump in!
N -- Take a cruise instead. Just make sure it's a private yacht with no one but you and the crew (fully masked and vaxxed).
3. Do you like romance between hardened molls and big tough guys with soft sides?
Y -- You get not one tough dude, but two. You get not one tough moll, but two (albeit one in her 90s).
N -- OK, then. Go back to your Hallmark movies (sigh) where it's still Christmas (sigh) and the formula is no secret (double sigh).
4. Do you like vernacular? You know, where everyone talks "funny," and it takes you a while (say, 62 pages) to get the hang of it?
Y -- "Is said they gots three flatblocks marked Cusack 'bove on the Rises this las' while an' that's three flatblocks fulla headjobs with a grá on 'em for rowin', y'check me?"
N -- Reread Huckleberry Finn, why don't you.
5. Do you mind slow starts so that the author can build character meticulously?
Y -- Take the next U-turn.
N -- Pour a masala chai, put your feet up, and relax.
6. What about pretty writing?
Y -- There's no denying, despite the ugly machinations, plots, and treachery, there's also some pretty writing going on. If none of the above throws you, you're going to at least love that part.
N -- What. Ugly writing, then?
1. Do you like books about battling mobsters?
Y -- Although the setting is some weird fictional city and the characters are borderline non-human humans, this should satisfy your yen.
N -- Take a pass.
2. Do you like books with the specter of violence (mostly) and outright violence (lesser so, but still very much so)?
Y -- People have knives and they know how to use them, so look sharp and jump in!
N -- Take a cruise instead. Just make sure it's a private yacht with no one but you and the crew (fully masked and vaxxed).
3. Do you like romance between hardened molls and big tough guys with soft sides?
Y -- You get not one tough dude, but two. You get not one tough moll, but two (albeit one in her 90s).
N -- OK, then. Go back to your Hallmark movies (sigh) where it's still Christmas (sigh) and the formula is no secret (double sigh).
4. Do you like vernacular? You know, where everyone talks "funny," and it takes you a while (say, 62 pages) to get the hang of it?
Y -- "Is said they gots three flatblocks marked Cusack 'bove on the Rises this las' while an' that's three flatblocks fulla headjobs with a grá on 'em for rowin', y'check me?"
N -- Reread Huckleberry Finn, why don't you.
5. Do you mind slow starts so that the author can build character meticulously?
Y -- Take the next U-turn.
N -- Pour a masala chai, put your feet up, and relax.
6. What about pretty writing?
Y -- There's no denying, despite the ugly machinations, plots, and treachery, there's also some pretty writing going on. If none of the above throws you, you're going to at least love that part.
N -- What. Ugly writing, then?
October 27, 2022
Tied with Mink River, Brian Doyle, for my favorite book of the year so far.
Read June 2022. Edited July '22, additional quotes etc.
.................
Now I've read every Kevin Barry. Three story collections, three novels. City of Bohane, I find, is his best. In fact, it's my favorite book of the year so far. Reviewed below.
(Btw, it’s pronounced, writes Barry, “Bo-hah-n”. He didn’t mention accentuation, but listening to him in a youtube, I hear some stress on the first syllable: BO-hawn. Not Bo-HAYNE, which is what I had thought.).
A most helpful map from the hardback, sadly missing from the paperback, the Graywolf Press Editon anyway. 2013. (Note 'Kevin Barry Square.')
"Whatever’s wrong with us is coming in off that river. No argument: the taint of badness on the city’s air is a taint off that river. This is the Bohane river we’re talking about. A blackwater surge,
malevolent, it roars in off the Big Nothin’ wastes and the city was spawned by it and was named for it: city of Bohane."--Kevin Barry
About this novel, City of Bohane, set in the years 2053 and '54, one might say:
Come for the crackerjack story; come for the larger than cinemascope/ dazzlingly-anachronistic costumed characters; come for the wild west meets gang-infested post-digital age Ireland-by-the-madding-sea setting, but stay for the prose.
Well, those first bits are just fine, sure. But for me, it’s: Come for the prose, stay for the prose.
And oh what prose it is. Me, I can’t get enough of this stuff. Prose charged with menace, with lyrical beauty, often in the same sentence. Eccentric, exuberant, crazily imaginative, thrilling prose. Lyrical, and at times, violent. (The violence, however, is surprisingly sporadic and often subtle, the gang battle midway, eg., is compressed into brief descriptions of a journalist’s snapshots, the fictional equivalent of a montage in film.). And funny? Oh yes, or at times anyway. Mixed in with the violence, the love triangles, the numerous acts of deceit, vengeance, and the jockeying for position as a gang leader falls from power, there is humor-- dark humor, as one might expect (or demand) of KB, of Bohane, this “bad-ass kind of town.” Ironic humor too, and unless my memory fails, a bit of slapstick, of Chaplin? Maybe. As KB has attested, this novel is as influenced by film (and HBO series Deadwood, the Sopranos, the Wire) and graphic novels, as it is by literature—chiefly, as long as I’m here, Cormac McCarthy, Anthony Burgess, James Joyce.
About the point of view. The voice is that of an insider, narrating in a patois similar to the speaking characters, though more accessible than some of the “lower,” working-class characters, whose jargon at times will elude meaning at first. Much of it you can guess from the context, or just look it up. (Some of the jargon was invented, but much of it is actual, searchable slang.) The POV is first-person, plural (“we”, “us”), and soon there arises an individual, “I,” but not identified by name till the book is largely done. The “we”, “us”, or “I” aspect, though, mostly recedes quietly to the background, allowing the author to use a cohesive narrative voice throughout, and maybe also keeping skeptics from wondering how one individual can be in so many places and heads. The first-person narrator is a man, of course. Bohane, after all, is a man’s world. Until it most emphatically is not. No spoiler from me. Skip the last bit of this sentence, though, if you want to bypass a vaguely worded possible spoiler: The narrator is a very minor character, one of the story’s many keepers of images, appropriately enough.
Something else I like about Barry is how he rearranges sentences for lyrical effect, in this example, moving the verb and the subject, unexpectedly, to the end:
Through the warm caffeine waft and dust-moted quiet of the shaded hotel he passed.
And here, at the end of sentence, the adjective and noun unexpectedly switch places. (Bonus: this is also a not half-bad example of the (very) frequent costume changes in this novel, which are not only amusing—especially if you imagine the character strutting down a fashion show runway, narrated by, my casting recommendation, the posh-voiced fellow in Seinfeld who played J. Peterman the fashion catalog guy —they are amusing, yes, but these descriptions often segue into physical descriptions* that still further characterize the player:
Macu wore:
A pair of suede capri pants dyed to a shade approaching the dull radiance of turmeric, a ribbed black top of sheer silk that hugged her lithe frame, a wrap of golden fur cut from an Iberian lynx, an expression of wry bemusement about the eyes, and about the mouth an expression unreadable.
(Want another one? Here ya go:)
Logan wore:
A pale green suit, slim-cut, of thin spring cotton, a pair of burnt-orange arsekickers with a pronounced, bulbous toe, a ruffle-fronted silver shirt open at the neck, a purple neckscarf, a pallor of magnificently wasted elegance, and his hair this season swept back at the forehead and worn just slightly longer, so that it trailed past the ruff of his jacket. Also, a three-day stubble.
Was the Long Fella's opinion that, if anything, his suffering made him even more gauntly beautiful. He had all the handsome poignancy of heartbreak.
*Physical description, clothing descriptions … Most other authors bore me in this department, but Barry is very good at it, something I had previously noticed in Night Boat to Tangier. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Two more excerpts, from pages opened at random. (On almost every page is a memorable turn of phrase):
The gulls were going loolah on the dockside stones.
Of course those gulls were never right. That is often said. The sheer derangement in their eyes, and the untranslatable evil of their cawing as they dive-bomb the streets. The gulls of Bohane are one ignorant pack of fuckers. He had missed them terribly.
.......
Smoketown smelt of chemical burn, untreated sewage and sweet chili noodles. There were faint back-notes also: pig, brew, oxen, coriander. The atmosphere generally was riverine and as Wolfie walked the wharf there was no small amount of poetry mingled with violent intention. Was the prospect of violence that stirred the poetics in Wolfie.
.....
There is much more I’d intended to discuss, but this is plenty long as is. I might be back to add notes, stuff I want to remember for a future reread, which is sure to come.
And in time, I "intend" to add a few quotes to the library as well. As of this writing, there are a mere ten* (!) quotes from this spectacularly-quotable novel (one of the ten --so far-- having been provided by yers truly, the opening paragraphs of the novel, short version at the top of this review.) Only ten? This miserly, shameful figure must be rectified! (One of these days.)
*July 2022: Make that 12. I added two more quotes.
Read June 2022. Edited July '22, additional quotes etc.
.................
Now I've read every Kevin Barry. Three story collections, three novels. City of Bohane, I find, is his best. In fact, it's my favorite book of the year so far. Reviewed below.
(Btw, it’s pronounced, writes Barry, “Bo-hah-n”. He didn’t mention accentuation, but listening to him in a youtube, I hear some stress on the first syllable: BO-hawn. Not Bo-HAYNE, which is what I had thought.).
A most helpful map from the hardback, sadly missing from the paperback, the Graywolf Press Editon anyway. 2013. (Note 'Kevin Barry Square.')
"Whatever’s wrong with us is coming in off that river. No argument: the taint of badness on the city’s air is a taint off that river. This is the Bohane river we’re talking about. A blackwater surge,
malevolent, it roars in off the Big Nothin’ wastes and the city was spawned by it and was named for it: city of Bohane."--Kevin Barry
About this novel, City of Bohane, set in the years 2053 and '54, one might say:
Come for the crackerjack story; come for the larger than cinemascope/ dazzlingly-anachronistic costumed characters; come for the wild west meets gang-infested post-digital age Ireland-by-the-madding-sea setting, but stay for the prose.
Well, those first bits are just fine, sure. But for me, it’s: Come for the prose, stay for the prose.
And oh what prose it is. Me, I can’t get enough of this stuff. Prose charged with menace, with lyrical beauty, often in the same sentence. Eccentric, exuberant, crazily imaginative, thrilling prose. Lyrical, and at times, violent. (The violence, however, is surprisingly sporadic and often subtle, the gang battle midway, eg., is compressed into brief descriptions of a journalist’s snapshots, the fictional equivalent of a montage in film.). And funny? Oh yes, or at times anyway. Mixed in with the violence, the love triangles, the numerous acts of deceit, vengeance, and the jockeying for position as a gang leader falls from power, there is humor-- dark humor, as one might expect (or demand) of KB, of Bohane, this “bad-ass kind of town.” Ironic humor too, and unless my memory fails, a bit of slapstick, of Chaplin? Maybe. As KB has attested, this novel is as influenced by film (and HBO series Deadwood, the Sopranos, the Wire) and graphic novels, as it is by literature—chiefly, as long as I’m here, Cormac McCarthy, Anthony Burgess, James Joyce.
About the point of view. The voice is that of an insider, narrating in a patois similar to the speaking characters, though more accessible than some of the “lower,” working-class characters, whose jargon at times will elude meaning at first. Much of it you can guess from the context, or just look it up. (Some of the jargon was invented, but much of it is actual, searchable slang.) The POV is first-person, plural (“we”, “us”), and soon there arises an individual, “I,” but not identified by name till the book is largely done. The “we”, “us”, or “I” aspect, though, mostly recedes quietly to the background, allowing the author to use a cohesive narrative voice throughout, and maybe also keeping skeptics from wondering how one individual can be in so many places and heads. The first-person narrator is a man, of course. Bohane, after all, is a man’s world. Until it most emphatically is not. No spoiler from me. Skip the last bit of this sentence, though, if you want to bypass a vaguely worded possible spoiler: The narrator is a very minor character, one of the story’s many keepers of images, appropriately enough.
Something else I like about Barry is how he rearranges sentences for lyrical effect, in this example, moving the verb and the subject, unexpectedly, to the end:
Through the warm caffeine waft and dust-moted quiet of the shaded hotel he passed.
And here, at the end of sentence, the adjective and noun unexpectedly switch places. (Bonus: this is also a not half-bad example of the (very) frequent costume changes in this novel, which are not only amusing—especially if you imagine the character strutting down a fashion show runway, narrated by, my casting recommendation, the posh-voiced fellow in Seinfeld who played J. Peterman the fashion catalog guy —they are amusing, yes, but these descriptions often segue into physical descriptions* that still further characterize the player:
Macu wore:
A pair of suede capri pants dyed to a shade approaching the dull radiance of turmeric, a ribbed black top of sheer silk that hugged her lithe frame, a wrap of golden fur cut from an Iberian lynx, an expression of wry bemusement about the eyes, and about the mouth an expression unreadable.
(Want another one? Here ya go:)
Logan wore:
A pale green suit, slim-cut, of thin spring cotton, a pair of burnt-orange arsekickers with a pronounced, bulbous toe, a ruffle-fronted silver shirt open at the neck, a purple neckscarf, a pallor of magnificently wasted elegance, and his hair this season swept back at the forehead and worn just slightly longer, so that it trailed past the ruff of his jacket. Also, a three-day stubble.
Was the Long Fella's opinion that, if anything, his suffering made him even more gauntly beautiful. He had all the handsome poignancy of heartbreak.
*Physical description, clothing descriptions … Most other authors bore me in this department, but Barry is very good at it, something I had previously noticed in Night Boat to Tangier. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Two more excerpts, from pages opened at random. (On almost every page is a memorable turn of phrase):
The gulls were going loolah on the dockside stones.
Of course those gulls were never right. That is often said. The sheer derangement in their eyes, and the untranslatable evil of their cawing as they dive-bomb the streets. The gulls of Bohane are one ignorant pack of fuckers. He had missed them terribly.
.......
Smoketown smelt of chemical burn, untreated sewage and sweet chili noodles. There were faint back-notes also: pig, brew, oxen, coriander. The atmosphere generally was riverine and as Wolfie walked the wharf there was no small amount of poetry mingled with violent intention. Was the prospect of violence that stirred the poetics in Wolfie.
.....
There is much more I’d intended to discuss, but this is plenty long as is. I might be back to add notes, stuff I want to remember for a future reread, which is sure to come.
And in time, I "intend" to add a few quotes to the library as well. As of this writing, there are a mere ten* (!) quotes from this spectacularly-quotable novel (one of the ten --so far-- having been provided by yers truly, the opening paragraphs of the novel, short version at the top of this review.) Only ten? This miserly, shameful figure must be rectified! (One of these days.)
*July 2022: Make that 12. I added two more quotes.
October 2, 2020
A place should never for too long go against its nature.
Bohane. Mid-21st century after some un-named calamity which has affected Ireland and, apparently, Britain also. Perhaps the rest of the world? That is one of the conceits of thissci-fi steampunk something novel, the first by the wonderful Kevin Barry. Bohane is a wicked city...think San Francisco of Barbary Coast fame in the 19th century. Everyone has a game, an angle to play and safety and security are part of the Lost-Time.
There are no illustrations for this book, because the author provides the Irish words, but is this a picture of Bohane?
Or this?
It's a city that has lived on a diet of hard booze and fat pills against the pain of its long existence. It's where we are heading, now, as we destroy the planet of trees and shelter and clean air. The novel centers around the denizens (I wouldn't call them citizens) of the town, none of whom seem to have any redeeming characteristics. Over it all is Girly Hartnett, a 90+ year-old tough-ass octogenarian whose son is the head of the toughest gang.
Girly liked old movies and menthol ciggies and plotting the city's continued derangement.
Girly is whacked. Ya sketchin'?
The Pikeys rule Smoketown but make a play for the Traces, because the Logan needs the help. Ya heedin'? Wolfie Stammer is terrifying but lovelorn for his Jennie, the devious player being groomed by the Girly. Each character is described in turns of the clothes they wear, as style is all even as the world is dying. Ya flockin'?
The polis are even worse than the gangstas and the newspaper men record it all. Brews and bushweed and elderflower gin. Who freaks the clips, ya zazzing'? Not one decent lot to choose from...except maybe the lone "good guys", the paramedics. Yeah, that's the life in the Bohane because if you leave the dark city and its dark waters and its maddened seagulls, you can only go to the Big Nothin', where the children are mutes and grow up with the Goatspeak.
Ya poobahin'?
The first 63 pages were agony for me. I've never been a reader who can tolerate dialects and Cagney-esque rapidfire exchanges. Then I hit page 64, and the world opened up for me. Yeah. Kick a plan then the sky burst. Bohane is Mad Max. Bohane is Digible Planets. Bohane is Miles. Bohane is the Beats. Bohane is Oliver Reed in The Damned.
Is it Joyce for the here-and-the-now? Can't speak to that, but what a ride. The last chapter keeps the visual and musical vibes glowin' with a wild West Side Story montage coming to mind. Yeah.
Snazzy, no?
Book Season = Winter (freestyle morphine jazz)
Bohane. Mid-21st century after some un-named calamity which has affected Ireland and, apparently, Britain also. Perhaps the rest of the world? That is one of the conceits of this
There are no illustrations for this book, because the author provides the Irish words, but is this a picture of Bohane?
Or this?
It's a city that has lived on a diet of hard booze and fat pills against the pain of its long existence. It's where we are heading, now, as we destroy the planet of trees and shelter and clean air. The novel centers around the denizens (I wouldn't call them citizens) of the town, none of whom seem to have any redeeming characteristics. Over it all is Girly Hartnett, a 90+ year-old tough-ass octogenarian whose son is the head of the toughest gang.
Girly liked old movies and menthol ciggies and plotting the city's continued derangement.
Girly is whacked. Ya sketchin'?
The Pikeys rule Smoketown but make a play for the Traces, because the Logan needs the help. Ya heedin'? Wolfie Stammer is terrifying but lovelorn for his Jennie, the devious player being groomed by the Girly. Each character is described in turns of the clothes they wear, as style is all even as the world is dying. Ya flockin'?
The polis are even worse than the gangstas and the newspaper men record it all. Brews and bushweed and elderflower gin. Who freaks the clips, ya zazzing'? Not one decent lot to choose from...except maybe the lone "good guys", the paramedics. Yeah, that's the life in the Bohane because if you leave the dark city and its dark waters and its maddened seagulls, you can only go to the Big Nothin', where the children are mutes and grow up with the Goatspeak.
Ya poobahin'?
The first 63 pages were agony for me. I've never been a reader who can tolerate dialects and Cagney-esque rapidfire exchanges. Then I hit page 64, and the world opened up for me. Yeah. Kick a plan then the sky burst. Bohane is Mad Max. Bohane is Digible Planets. Bohane is Miles. Bohane is the Beats. Bohane is Oliver Reed in The Damned.
Is it Joyce for the here-and-the-now? Can't speak to that, but what a ride. The last chapter keeps the visual and musical vibes glowin' with a wild West Side Story montage coming to mind. Yeah.
Snazzy, no?
Book Season = Winter (freestyle morphine jazz)
May 7, 2012
Kevin Barry is well known for his short stories. He has a vivid imagination and is an excellent wordsmith, crafting some lovely, expressive prose. City of Bohane has received high praise from some of Ireland’s literary stars such as Roddy Doyle, Joseph O’Connor and Hugo Hamilton. I therefore had high expectations for Barry’s first novel. With the exception of the prose and some of the characterisation, for me, it failed to deliver. For the most part, the characters are difficult to identify with and I couldn’t have cared less what happened to them; they're a bunch of scoundrels hooked on vice and violence. The tale has no back story. We’re forty years into the future, Ireland seems to have slipped backwards a couple of hundred years minus the colonial rule, and we have no idea as to why this occurred or the general wider socio-political landscape of Ireland or Europe. Rather we’re isolated in a fictional city, with the sea on one side and surrounded by bog otherwise, and all we have is a nostalgia for a ‘lost-time’ that’s never explained. The plot is wafer thin and is largely feuding clans seeking to remain in charge of the city. My sense when I got to the end was, ‘yes, and?’ Given the literary plaudits, I was expecting a lot more and yet there is no great sociological, political or economic unveiling, no sense of philosophical or theological reflection, no feeling that story served any purpose. Barry does manage to create some sense of place, but the city is very simply structured into five zones, lacking the complexity of a real place and it’s really not clear how large a town it actually is. It felt quite small town to me, certainly not a large city. There is also a first person narrator who drifts in very occasionally and seemingly with no purpose. Barry rightly deserves the plaudits for his ability as a wordsmith, and there are some very nice passages in City of Bohane, but as a novel length story for me it fell short of what it could have been.
November 7, 2022
Before reading the City of Bohane (2011) I had read Kevin Barry’s more recent Night Boat to Tangier, and That Old Country Music, both of which I loved. Or rather, I listened to them, because while you should usually read physical books that pay as much attention to language as Barry does, but he makes it tough by being an exquisite, seductive reader of his own work, creating a deep, dark foundation for the stories. Ach, that voice! That language!
I read this book because Ray Nessly said it was his favorite book of the year, so read his review for an appreciation of what this book is really about, lyrical and gritty language. And rich characterization would be my second choice to pay attention to, but in the way of noir--call this Irish noir--tone and atmosphere and the threat of violence maybe the most central element:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I am not really sure that that much is gained by setting this story in a fictional Irish city fifty years in the future. Dystopian, sure. There’s only gang wars now, the Cusacks going to Smoketown to take on Long Fella's Fancy gang. The Sand Pikeys are also in there. Then there are the characters: From the outset brutal Logan Harnett and Gant Broderick seem like the chief power-brokers, but ultimately three women are really in control--Girly Harnett, Macu, and maybe especially Jenni Ching, one of the most memorable figures in a gang war novel you will encounter, smoking her stogies. Then there's the weird focus on clothes, though maybe style and noir always go together.
Maybe with the focus on rich colloquial and partly invented/futuristic language we are reminded of the later Joyce or Beckett, or even Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange.
“Oh give us a grim Tuesday of December, with the hardwind taking schleps at our heads, and the rain coming slantways off that hideous fucking ocean, and the grapes nearly frozen off us, and dirty ice caked up top of the puddles, and we are not happy, exactly, but satisfied in our despair.”
“It was one of those summers you’re nostalgic for even before it passes. Pale, bled skies. Thunderstorms in the night. Sour-smelling dawns. It brought temptation, and yearning, and ache – these are the summer things.”
“Whatever���s wrong with us is coming in off that river. No argument: the taint of badness on the city’s air is a taint off that river. This is the Bohane river we’re talking about. A blackwater surge, malevolent, it roars in off the Big Nothin’ wastes and the city was pawned by it and was named for it: city of Bohane."
As Ray says, Come for the prose, stay for the prose.
I read this book because Ray Nessly said it was his favorite book of the year, so read his review for an appreciation of what this book is really about, lyrical and gritty language. And rich characterization would be my second choice to pay attention to, but in the way of noir--call this Irish noir--tone and atmosphere and the threat of violence maybe the most central element:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I am not really sure that that much is gained by setting this story in a fictional Irish city fifty years in the future. Dystopian, sure. There’s only gang wars now, the Cusacks going to Smoketown to take on Long Fella's Fancy gang. The Sand Pikeys are also in there. Then there are the characters: From the outset brutal Logan Harnett and Gant Broderick seem like the chief power-brokers, but ultimately three women are really in control--Girly Harnett, Macu, and maybe especially Jenni Ching, one of the most memorable figures in a gang war novel you will encounter, smoking her stogies. Then there's the weird focus on clothes, though maybe style and noir always go together.
Maybe with the focus on rich colloquial and partly invented/futuristic language we are reminded of the later Joyce or Beckett, or even Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange.
“Oh give us a grim Tuesday of December, with the hardwind taking schleps at our heads, and the rain coming slantways off that hideous fucking ocean, and the grapes nearly frozen off us, and dirty ice caked up top of the puddles, and we are not happy, exactly, but satisfied in our despair.”
“It was one of those summers you’re nostalgic for even before it passes. Pale, bled skies. Thunderstorms in the night. Sour-smelling dawns. It brought temptation, and yearning, and ache – these are the summer things.”
“Whatever���s wrong with us is coming in off that river. No argument: the taint of badness on the city’s air is a taint off that river. This is the Bohane river we’re talking about. A blackwater surge, malevolent, it roars in off the Big Nothin’ wastes and the city was pawned by it and was named for it: city of Bohane."
As Ray says, Come for the prose, stay for the prose.
December 14, 2011
Kevin Barry is a genius. He is doing with his life and his gift exactly what he was put on this earth to do and continues the long and great line of Irish writers. His debut novel City of Bohane is an original and remarkable work of inventiveness.
Set in the fictional and futuristic city of Bohane, somewhere in the West of Ireland in 2053, this is a dark and harrowing tale that is at turns horrific and stunning. For all the memorable and well-dressed characters, gripping plot twists, and brilliant molding of lyric language, the work holds up a truth about the Irish psyche that has long and deeply troubled me: A savage violence. We're fierce about land, love, family, and reputation and all that brings out both the worst and the best in us. Of course in both Irish life and literature, it helps that however dire our circumstances and dark our urges, we know how to have a good time. City of Bohane is also, thankfully, sprinkled with wit, humor and humanity.
This novel won't be for everyone. City of Bohane is not an easy read and requires work of the reader. There's a large and colorful--and sometimes confusing--cast, dense dialect and colloquialisms, and visceral violence. Hell, Barry even makes up words throughout, and delightfully so. For me, it is the strange, twisted and beautiful language that makes this novel so compelling. As I read, I felt fortunate to gawp at this wondrous treasure trove of Barry's creativity and mastery.
I could qualify all of the above with 'in my humble opinion,' but feck that.
Set in the fictional and futuristic city of Bohane, somewhere in the West of Ireland in 2053, this is a dark and harrowing tale that is at turns horrific and stunning. For all the memorable and well-dressed characters, gripping plot twists, and brilliant molding of lyric language, the work holds up a truth about the Irish psyche that has long and deeply troubled me: A savage violence. We're fierce about land, love, family, and reputation and all that brings out both the worst and the best in us. Of course in both Irish life and literature, it helps that however dire our circumstances and dark our urges, we know how to have a good time. City of Bohane is also, thankfully, sprinkled with wit, humor and humanity.
This novel won't be for everyone. City of Bohane is not an easy read and requires work of the reader. There's a large and colorful--and sometimes confusing--cast, dense dialect and colloquialisms, and visceral violence. Hell, Barry even makes up words throughout, and delightfully so. For me, it is the strange, twisted and beautiful language that makes this novel so compelling. As I read, I felt fortunate to gawp at this wondrous treasure trove of Barry's creativity and mastery.
I could qualify all of the above with 'in my humble opinion,' but feck that.
April 29, 2019
City of Bohane, Kevin Barry's debut novel, won the prestigious international Impac prize in 2013, one of the my favourite literary prizes as one of the few that treats translated fiction on a par with English language originals (https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...). And his 2nd novel, Beatlebone has been shortlisted for the equally excellent Goldsmiths Prize.
So I came to this book with high expectations, albeit tempered by the detail of the Impac nomination which states that the novel "blends influences from film and the graphic novel, from Trojan beats and calypso rhythms, from Celtic myth and legend, from fado and the sagas". Literary fiction is notably absent from the list, and indeed Barry has said "realist literary fiction is, of course, the hoariest (and dullest) of all the genres".
The story is set in the "Gothical West of Ireland" in the "once great and cosmopolitan" City of Bohane and the fueds between and within the various street-gangs that dominate the seedier parts of town ("its grogshops, its noodle joints, its tickle-foot parlours. Its dank shebeens and fetsih studios. Its shooting galleries, hoor stables, bookmakers. All crowded in on each other in the lean-to streets. The tottering old chimneys were stacked in great deranged happiness against the morning sky").
We are forty years in the future (2053-4), after a lost-time ("they wished that the lost-time in Bohane might, as the years passed, fade into less painful memory"). Beyond the City of Bohane lies the Nations Beyond, spoke of by the City's inhabitants as some mythical place but actually with a rather prosaic relationship with the City's Authority - a key plot element concerns ensuring the City's reputation isn't too sullied by the unfolding events as to lose the funding for a new tram line.
The author has described the novel as "a weird retro-fitted future-Western, with lots of gratuitous swearing, hideous violence, perverse sex and powerful opiates." While that makes the novel sound more potentially shocking than it really is, the description is a good one. In particular this is an oddly technology-free future - there are no cars only trams and horses, no mobile phones or computers, the gangsters use knifes not guns.
Barry has a Joycean love of the auditory power of language - with prose that almost demands to be read out loud. The most memorable parts of the novel are the highly visual descriptions of the characters and the outlandish costumes that they wear (and which they change on a daily basis).
E.g. Logan Hartnett (aka the Long Fella), who effectively runs Bohane at present.
"All sorts of quarehawks lingered Trace-deep in the small hours. They looked down as he passed, they examined their toes and their sacks of tawny wine - you wouldn't make eye contact with the Long Fella if you could help it. Strange, but we had a fear of him and a pride in him, both. He had a fine hold of himself, as we say in Bohane. He was graceful and erect and he looked neither left nor right but straight out ahead always, with the shoulders thrown back, like a general. He walked the Arab tangle of alleyways and wynds that make up the Trace and there was the slap, the lift, the slap, the lift of Portuguese leather on the backstreet stones. Yes and Logan was in his element as he made progress through the labyrinth. He feared not the shadows, he knew the fibres of the place, he knew every last twist and lilt of it."
Most memorable dressed is Ol Boy Mannion
"Ol Boy wore:
High-top boots expensively clicker'd with gold taps, a pair of hip-hugging jodphur-style pants in a faded mauve tone, an amount of gold chains, a heavy mink coat to keep out the worst of the headwind's assaults and a goatskin beanie hat see pavee-style on the crown of his head.
Truth of it - this was as suave an old dude as you'd come across in the whole of Bohane creation."
Another two characters. One wore:
"Silver high-top boots, drainpipe strides in a natty-boy mottle, a low-slung dirk belt and a three-quarter jacket of saffron-dyed sheepskin. He was tall and straggly as an invasive weed. He was astonishingly sentimental, and as violent again. His belligerent green eyes were strange flowers indeed. He was seventeen years of age and he read magical significance into occurrences of the number nine. He had ambition deep inside but could hardly even name it. His true love: an unpredictable Alsatian bitch name of Angelina.
Wolfie wore;
Black patent high-tops, tight bleached denims with a matcher of a waistcoat, a high dirk belt, and a navy Crombie with a black velvet collar. Wolfie was low-sized, compact, ginger, and he thrummed with dense energies. He had a blackbird's poppy eyed stare, thyroidal, and if his brow was no more than an inch deep, it was packed with an alley rat's cunning. He was seventeen, also, and betrayed, sometimes, by odd sentiments under moonlight. He wanted to own entirely the City of Bohane. His all-new, all-true love: Miss Jenni Ching of the Hartnett Fancy and the Oh Pee Ching Oh-Kay Koffee Shoppe."
Jennis is perhaps the most memorable character, a teenage girl and emerging rival for "the Long Fella":
"Miss Jenni Ching, boss-lady of the Ho Pee ever since her black-mooded momma had tossed her small demented bones into the Bohane river (just a quick headlong dash from the caff), on account of dog-fight debts, some said, or because of a persistent strain of Ching family madness, according to others, and Jenni regarded the fatty, creamy soup her uncle offered with an as-if glare – on my hips? – and she pushed it aside. She was in a white leather jumpsuit up top of hoss-polis zippered boots, with her fine hair let down, and her hair was streaked and worn this season in a blunt-cut fringe that she blew aside with regular, rhythmic spouts of tabsmoke."
The dialogue is in stylised slang - e.g. Jenni's first words in the novel to Logan. "Cusacks gonna sulk up a welt o'vengeance by 'n' by and if yer askin' me, like? A rake o' them tossers bullin' down off the Rises is the las' thing Smoketown need."
The story itself rather takes a back-seat to all of this, but the various power struggles are interesting enough to maintain the reader's interest, if nothing very new. And that highlights my issue.
The Problem is:
the so-what. I was expecting some sort of explanation for how Bohane evolved to this state, or more on how and why it operates now and the wider world, perhaps as a commentary on Irish history, or some more literary allusions, or something. Ultimately this is a steam-punk graphic novel, but one where the pictures are painted in words. That's impressive, but it isn't enough, particularly not to win such a major prize.
So I came to this book with high expectations, albeit tempered by the detail of the Impac nomination which states that the novel "blends influences from film and the graphic novel, from Trojan beats and calypso rhythms, from Celtic myth and legend, from fado and the sagas". Literary fiction is notably absent from the list, and indeed Barry has said "realist literary fiction is, of course, the hoariest (and dullest) of all the genres".
The story is set in the "Gothical West of Ireland" in the "once great and cosmopolitan" City of Bohane and the fueds between and within the various street-gangs that dominate the seedier parts of town ("its grogshops, its noodle joints, its tickle-foot parlours. Its dank shebeens and fetsih studios. Its shooting galleries, hoor stables, bookmakers. All crowded in on each other in the lean-to streets. The tottering old chimneys were stacked in great deranged happiness against the morning sky").
We are forty years in the future (2053-4), after a lost-time ("they wished that the lost-time in Bohane might, as the years passed, fade into less painful memory"). Beyond the City of Bohane lies the Nations Beyond, spoke of by the City's inhabitants as some mythical place but actually with a rather prosaic relationship with the City's Authority - a key plot element concerns ensuring the City's reputation isn't too sullied by the unfolding events as to lose the funding for a new tram line.
The author has described the novel as "a weird retro-fitted future-Western, with lots of gratuitous swearing, hideous violence, perverse sex and powerful opiates." While that makes the novel sound more potentially shocking than it really is, the description is a good one. In particular this is an oddly technology-free future - there are no cars only trams and horses, no mobile phones or computers, the gangsters use knifes not guns.
Barry has a Joycean love of the auditory power of language - with prose that almost demands to be read out loud. The most memorable parts of the novel are the highly visual descriptions of the characters and the outlandish costumes that they wear (and which they change on a daily basis).
E.g. Logan Hartnett (aka the Long Fella), who effectively runs Bohane at present.
"All sorts of quarehawks lingered Trace-deep in the small hours. They looked down as he passed, they examined their toes and their sacks of tawny wine - you wouldn't make eye contact with the Long Fella if you could help it. Strange, but we had a fear of him and a pride in him, both. He had a fine hold of himself, as we say in Bohane. He was graceful and erect and he looked neither left nor right but straight out ahead always, with the shoulders thrown back, like a general. He walked the Arab tangle of alleyways and wynds that make up the Trace and there was the slap, the lift, the slap, the lift of Portuguese leather on the backstreet stones. Yes and Logan was in his element as he made progress through the labyrinth. He feared not the shadows, he knew the fibres of the place, he knew every last twist and lilt of it."
Most memorable dressed is Ol Boy Mannion
"Ol Boy wore:
High-top boots expensively clicker'd with gold taps, a pair of hip-hugging jodphur-style pants in a faded mauve tone, an amount of gold chains, a heavy mink coat to keep out the worst of the headwind's assaults and a goatskin beanie hat see pavee-style on the crown of his head.
Truth of it - this was as suave an old dude as you'd come across in the whole of Bohane creation."
Another two characters. One wore:
"Silver high-top boots, drainpipe strides in a natty-boy mottle, a low-slung dirk belt and a three-quarter jacket of saffron-dyed sheepskin. He was tall and straggly as an invasive weed. He was astonishingly sentimental, and as violent again. His belligerent green eyes were strange flowers indeed. He was seventeen years of age and he read magical significance into occurrences of the number nine. He had ambition deep inside but could hardly even name it. His true love: an unpredictable Alsatian bitch name of Angelina.
Wolfie wore;
Black patent high-tops, tight bleached denims with a matcher of a waistcoat, a high dirk belt, and a navy Crombie with a black velvet collar. Wolfie was low-sized, compact, ginger, and he thrummed with dense energies. He had a blackbird's poppy eyed stare, thyroidal, and if his brow was no more than an inch deep, it was packed with an alley rat's cunning. He was seventeen, also, and betrayed, sometimes, by odd sentiments under moonlight. He wanted to own entirely the City of Bohane. His all-new, all-true love: Miss Jenni Ching of the Hartnett Fancy and the Oh Pee Ching Oh-Kay Koffee Shoppe."
Jennis is perhaps the most memorable character, a teenage girl and emerging rival for "the Long Fella":
"Miss Jenni Ching, boss-lady of the Ho Pee ever since her black-mooded momma had tossed her small demented bones into the Bohane river (just a quick headlong dash from the caff), on account of dog-fight debts, some said, or because of a persistent strain of Ching family madness, according to others, and Jenni regarded the fatty, creamy soup her uncle offered with an as-if glare – on my hips? – and she pushed it aside. She was in a white leather jumpsuit up top of hoss-polis zippered boots, with her fine hair let down, and her hair was streaked and worn this season in a blunt-cut fringe that she blew aside with regular, rhythmic spouts of tabsmoke."
The dialogue is in stylised slang - e.g. Jenni's first words in the novel to Logan. "Cusacks gonna sulk up a welt o'vengeance by 'n' by and if yer askin' me, like? A rake o' them tossers bullin' down off the Rises is the las' thing Smoketown need."
The story itself rather takes a back-seat to all of this, but the various power struggles are interesting enough to maintain the reader's interest, if nothing very new. And that highlights my issue.
The Problem is:
the so-what. I was expecting some sort of explanation for how Bohane evolved to this state, or more on how and why it operates now and the wider world, perhaps as a commentary on Irish history, or some more literary allusions, or something. Ultimately this is a steam-punk graphic novel, but one where the pictures are painted in words. That's impressive, but it isn't enough, particularly not to win such a major prize.
April 8, 2020
3.5 rounded up
Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane is a novel that is probably going either to draw you compulsively in or just as compulsively put you off, as its appeal lies less in plot than in language—and if you don’t give yourself over to the prose, the novel will in all likelihood seem audaciously weird but not much else, except perhaps grating and annoying. Set in the near future in a city in west Ireland, City of Bohane is another in the flood of dystopian novels that seem so popular these days (understandably so, right? I’m writing this amidst the COVID-19 crisis, along with the ongoing climate catastrophe). Bohane is a city divided into segregated sections ruled over by warring gangs—and the novel follows the outbreak of a gang war and the personal relations that go awry under the pressure. It’s violent, gritty, and in places even cartoonish in its exaggerated situations and characters (mostly a motley group of scoundrels, some of whom are lovable in their bumbling quirkiness). There’s not a lot of subtlety in this violent world of punk and power—think, maybe, of A Clockwork Orange. This is not to say this should be a novel of discerning delicacy, as clearly this is not Barry’s intention; but it is to say, don’t pick up the novel looking for it.
But do pick it up if you want to be swept away by its dazzling language, a wild mix of Irish street talk and elevated expression. You just have to go with prose, sound it out, be carried along by its cascading torrent. The inside front jacket (front jackets are often written by the authors) describes this wild witches’ brew as “three hundred fiendish pages” mixing “Celtic myth and a Caribbean beat, fado and film, graphic-novel cool and all the ripe inheritance of Irish literature to create something hilarious, strange, beautiful, and startingly new.” That’s a pretty accurate representation of what Barry stirs up and around, but the final result, at least to my taste, is not quite as satisfying as the statement claims. Still, City of Bohane is a surprising and fearless novel, one that joyously revels in the magic and beauty of language.
Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane is a novel that is probably going either to draw you compulsively in or just as compulsively put you off, as its appeal lies less in plot than in language—and if you don’t give yourself over to the prose, the novel will in all likelihood seem audaciously weird but not much else, except perhaps grating and annoying. Set in the near future in a city in west Ireland, City of Bohane is another in the flood of dystopian novels that seem so popular these days (understandably so, right? I’m writing this amidst the COVID-19 crisis, along with the ongoing climate catastrophe). Bohane is a city divided into segregated sections ruled over by warring gangs—and the novel follows the outbreak of a gang war and the personal relations that go awry under the pressure. It’s violent, gritty, and in places even cartoonish in its exaggerated situations and characters (mostly a motley group of scoundrels, some of whom are lovable in their bumbling quirkiness). There’s not a lot of subtlety in this violent world of punk and power—think, maybe, of A Clockwork Orange. This is not to say this should be a novel of discerning delicacy, as clearly this is not Barry’s intention; but it is to say, don’t pick up the novel looking for it.
But do pick it up if you want to be swept away by its dazzling language, a wild mix of Irish street talk and elevated expression. You just have to go with prose, sound it out, be carried along by its cascading torrent. The inside front jacket (front jackets are often written by the authors) describes this wild witches’ brew as “three hundred fiendish pages” mixing “Celtic myth and a Caribbean beat, fado and film, graphic-novel cool and all the ripe inheritance of Irish literature to create something hilarious, strange, beautiful, and startingly new.” That’s a pretty accurate representation of what Barry stirs up and around, but the final result, at least to my taste, is not quite as satisfying as the statement claims. Still, City of Bohane is a surprising and fearless novel, one that joyously revels in the magic and beauty of language.
September 11, 2020
مدينة بوهاين
كيفن باري
الكاتب من مواليد ليمريك في إيرلندا سنة 1969وهو بشتغل بالصحافة بالإضافة لعمله بالكتابة، من مؤلفاته آلام الفن، إدمان الجريمة، ومدينة بوهاين اللي حصل من خلالها على جائزة دبلن الأدبية الدولية وجائزة جولدسميث، وفي عدة افلام انعملت من كتبه منها dark lies the island تم إنتاجه سنة 2019 وفيلم breakfast wine سنة 2013.
المميز بالرواية سحرها وقدرتها على جذبك وسحبك لقراءتها ومتابعة أحداثها، طبعاً حاولت ألاقي سبب واضح لقيت إنه خلطة عجيبة من الأسباب، منها أسباب بالكتاب أو الكاتب أو الأحداث ومنها أسباب ممكن ترجع إلي كقارئ، يعني مش بالضرورة الكتاب يعجب كل قارئ لكن من الإنصاف ذكر مميزاته وعبقريته...
المكان عبارة عن مدينة إسمها بوهاين والزمان تقريباً سنة 2054مع إنه ما في اي مظهر من مظاهر التطور التقني أو الفني بالعكس كل شي بدل على إنه الأحداث بالماضي السحيق بفترة كان منتشر فيها الجهل والعصابات وانعدام الأخلاق وإنحلال المجتمع...
القصة عن عصابتين كل واحدة بتسيطر على جزء من المدينة اللي بقسمها جسر إلى جانبين كل جانب بخضع لشخص وهو بملكه بقوته وفرضه لقانونه الخاص والجانبين كانوا عايشين بنوع من السلام بناء على خضوعهم لهذا الواقع.... بتبدأ الأحداث برجوع واحد من قادة المدينة بعد غياب خمسة وعشرين سنة، مع إنه برجع خسران كثير من قوته إلا إنه المشاكل بتطفو على السطح برجوعه وبما إنه الجانبين بحترموا القانون بتبعوا الإجراءات التاريخية لإعلان الحرب من خلال ورقة رسمية إذا وقعها الطرف الثاني بتكون دليل على موافقته على إطلاق الحرب، ولإنه الطرفين كانت خسائرهم جسيمة بحاولوا العقلاء يطفوا شعلتها عن طريق محاولة إقناع أم واحد من الطرفين بنزع فتيل الحرب....
أجواء الرواية كئيبة ومليان مشاهد قتل وتعذيب لكن ما بتخلو من مواقف عاطفية خاصة حب رئيس العصابة لزوجة رئيس العصابة الثانية يعني ظروف حب فوق المستحيل رغم هيك كان في مواقف مؤثرة بينهم، باقي المشاهد كلها بتحكي عن إنحطاط المجتمع وصراع العصابات اللي بروح ضحاياه أفراد الشعب البسطاء، ما في ذكر لأي مشهد من مشاهد وجود الدولة أو الجيش، كانوا دول داخل دولة وبطبقوا قانونهم الخاص بأسلحتهم الخاصة...
الرواية بدون تحمي��ها وزر التحليل والرمزية جميلة ومتقنة لكن إذا كنت من القراء اللي بستمتعوا بالبحث عن توسيع التمثيل لكل شخصية فرح تستمتع بشخصيات مرسومة بفن بتخليك تبحر في الجانب اللي ممكن تمثله هالشخصية لو اسقطناها عالواقع...
كيفن باري
الكاتب من مواليد ليمريك في إيرلندا سنة 1969وهو بشتغل بالصحافة بالإضافة لعمله بالكتابة، من مؤلفاته آلام الفن، إدمان الجريمة، ومدينة بوهاين اللي حصل من خلالها على جائزة دبلن الأدبية الدولية وجائزة جولدسميث، وفي عدة افلام انعملت من كتبه منها dark lies the island تم إنتاجه سنة 2019 وفيلم breakfast wine سنة 2013.
المميز بالرواية سحرها وقدرتها على جذبك وسحبك لقراءتها ومتابعة أحداثها، طبعاً حاولت ألاقي سبب واضح لقيت إنه خلطة عجيبة من الأسباب، منها أسباب بالكتاب أو الكاتب أو الأحداث ومنها أسباب ممكن ترجع إلي كقارئ، يعني مش بالضرورة الكتاب يعجب كل قارئ لكن من الإنصاف ذكر مميزاته وعبقريته...
المكان عبارة عن مدينة إسمها بوهاين والزمان تقريباً سنة 2054مع إنه ما في اي مظهر من مظاهر التطور التقني أو الفني بالعكس كل شي بدل على إنه الأحداث بالماضي السحيق بفترة كان منتشر فيها الجهل والعصابات وانعدام الأخلاق وإنحلال المجتمع...
القصة عن عصابتين كل واحدة بتسيطر على جزء من المدينة اللي بقسمها جسر إلى جانبين كل جانب بخضع لشخص وهو بملكه بقوته وفرضه لقانونه الخاص والجانبين كانوا عايشين بنوع من السلام بناء على خضوعهم لهذا الواقع.... بتبدأ الأحداث برجوع واحد من قادة المدينة بعد غياب خمسة وعشرين سنة، مع إنه برجع خسران كثير من قوته إلا إنه المشاكل بتطفو على السطح برجوعه وبما إنه الجانبين بحترموا القانون بتبعوا الإجراءات التاريخية لإعلان الحرب من خلال ورقة رسمية إذا وقعها الطرف الثاني بتكون دليل على موافقته على إطلاق الحرب، ولإنه الطرفين كانت خسائرهم جسيمة بحاولوا العقلاء يطفوا شعلتها عن طريق محاولة إقناع أم واحد من الطرفين بنزع فتيل الحرب....
أجواء الرواية كئيبة ومليان مشاهد قتل وتعذيب لكن ما بتخلو من مواقف عاطفية خاصة حب رئيس العصابة لزوجة رئيس العصابة الثانية يعني ظروف حب فوق المستحيل رغم هيك كان في مواقف مؤثرة بينهم، باقي المشاهد كلها بتحكي عن إنحطاط المجتمع وصراع العصابات اللي بروح ضحاياه أفراد الشعب البسطاء، ما في ذكر لأي مشهد من مشاهد وجود الدولة أو الجيش، كانوا دول داخل دولة وبطبقوا قانونهم الخاص بأسلحتهم الخاصة...
الرواية بدون تحمي��ها وزر التحليل والرمزية جميلة ومتقنة لكن إذا كنت من القراء اللي بستمتعوا بالبحث عن توسيع التمثيل لكل شخصية فرح تستمتع بشخصيات مرسومة بفن بتخليك تبحر في الجانب اللي ممكن تمثله هالشخصية لو اسقطناها عالواقع...
September 22, 2019
Gorgeous
PS, Might not be for you
PS, Might not be for you
Read
July 16, 2018Жила-була й переклала.
Кевін Баррі каже: найцікавіше у великих оповідних формах зараз відбувається не у романах, а у серіалах. Початково ті виросли, звісно, з літературних традицій – то час літературним традиціям забирати свої іграшки назад. Виходить, як він сам каже, “текст у техніколорі”, зумисне over the top, усе надмірне, насильство надмірне, барви згущені, образи персонажів доведені до абсурду, глибини картинки чи персонажів нема, тільки візуальні фішечки, тільки хардкор, а суто візуальні фішечки (трамваї, стильний одяг усіх героїв, постапокаліптична урбаністика і тд) у текстовому медіумі виглядають значно бідніше, ніж у візуальному.
А найкраще, що є в романі – якраз суто літературне: він написаний почасти абсолютно казковою мовою, такою постапокаліптичною трансформацією західноірландського соціолекту робітничого класу, де вся ця неграматична розруха вливається в епос. Себто стилістично – лялечка, ігри з літературними алюзіями – лялечка, ідея новітнього епосу на руїнах цивілізації – лялечка, але при цьому герої категорично і зумисне плоскі, і це не бага, а фіча (чи то від епосу, чи то від не найбільш вдалих екранізацій коміксів), і як вам це читатиметься – залежить виключно від того, чи ці плоскуваті образи збігаються з вашими уявленнями про прекрасне.
Отже, для того, щоб отримувати від цього задоволення, потрібно отримувати задоволення від:
* нуарових героїв - стильний костюм, стильна зачіска, замилування статусними іграми такого тіпа мачо-мена, який обвів свою банду поглядом, і однією посмішечкою поставив усіх на місце.
* школи сильних жіночих персонажів імені Тарантіно, де сила дівчини виключно визирає із надкоротких шортиків чи куртки в облипку, а її самостійність і вільнодумність виявляється виключно в тому, шо вона, 17-літня, непоясненно ходить займатися сексом до 50-річного нєвнятного персонажа в ліси. (Окей, ні, про Тарантіно я загнула, у Тарантіно все таки в рази-в рази краще.)
Коротше кажучи, літературний конструкт цікавий і оригінальний, але не можу сказати, що мій.
Кевін Баррі каже: найцікавіше у великих оповідних формах зараз відбувається не у романах, а у серіалах. Початково ті виросли, звісно, з літературних традицій – то час літературним традиціям забирати свої іграшки назад. Виходить, як він сам каже, “текст у техніколорі”, зумисне over the top, усе надмірне, насильство надмірне, барви згущені, образи персонажів доведені до абсурду, глибини картинки чи персонажів нема, тільки візуальні фішечки, тільки хардкор, а суто візуальні фішечки (трамваї, стильний одяг усіх героїв, постапокаліптична урбаністика і тд) у текстовому медіумі виглядають значно бідніше, ніж у візуальному.
А найкраще, що є в романі – якраз суто літературне: він написаний почасти абсолютно казковою мовою, такою постапокаліптичною трансформацією західноірландського соціолекту робітничого класу, де вся ця неграматична розруха вливається в епос. Себто стилістично – лялечка, ігри з літературними алюзіями – лялечка, ідея новітнього епосу на руїнах цивілізації – лялечка, але при цьому герої категорично і зумисне плоскі, і це не бага, а фіча (чи то від епосу, чи то від не найбільш вдалих екранізацій коміксів), і як вам це читатиметься – залежить виключно від того, чи ці плоскуваті образи збігаються з вашими уявленнями про прекрасне.
Отже, для того, щоб отримувати від цього задоволення, потрібно отримувати задоволення від:
* нуарових героїв - стильний костюм, стильна зачіска, замилування статусними іграми такого тіпа мачо-мена, який обвів свою банду поглядом, і однією посмішечкою поставив усіх на місце.
* школи сильних жіночих персонажів імені Тарантіно, де сила дівчини виключно визирає із надкоротких шортиків чи куртки в облипку, а її самостійність і вільнодумність виявляється виключно в тому, шо вона, 17-літня, непоясненно ходить займатися сексом до 50-річного нєвнятного персонажа в ліси. (Окей, ні, про Тарантіно я загнула, у Тарантіно все таки в рази-в рази краще.)
Коротше кажучи, літературний конструкт цікавий і оригінальний, але не можу сказати, що мій.
March 18, 2013
Unusual and memorable bog-soaked poetry of a small Irish city filled with whores, gamblers, criminals, lonely hearts, and every other kind of down-and-outer. It's a city where whoever schemes the best lives the longest, and you can't trust anyone. It's a city that breaks people.
Like drinking whiskey on a wintery day in a room with no heat, no light, and two-inch gapes between each wooden wall plank, Barry's book will shake you. It's a silent, desperate bellowing yellow to the moon. And it's also about love. If it were a human, City of Bohane would walk around with a switchblade in its backpocket and a crepe-paper heart pinned to its black cloth vest.
Barry's language is poetry to sharpen your teeth on.
Like drinking whiskey on a wintery day in a room with no heat, no light, and two-inch gapes between each wooden wall plank, Barry's book will shake you. It's a silent, desperate bellowing yellow to the moon. And it's also about love. If it were a human, City of Bohane would walk around with a switchblade in its backpocket and a crepe-paper heart pinned to its black cloth vest.
Barry's language is poetry to sharpen your teeth on.
July 2, 2020
My third Barry novel, but his first. And a very impressive debut novel it is. The story is set in a future Ireland (the year is 2053/4) where something has happened that means what we today (2020) would consider modern technology (mobile phones, for example) are non-existent, but some older technology (e.g. film cameras) is still available and in use. There is a lot of swearing, a fair amount of violence and some sex. There’s plenty of dark humour and the book is written in a language that is almost dialect rather than accent.
What I enjoyed most here is the way Barry holds so many different things at the front of his story. There’s a lot of fighting for control of Bohane, but it seems equally true that characters are fighting for dominance in the narrative. Is this the story of a love triangle between two gangland bosses and a woman they both love? Or is it the story of a ruthless young woman seeking her own position of power? Or is it a story of gangland warfare for control of a city. I could continue this because the book is full of twists and turns that cause the reader to continually re-evaluate what the main story is that is being told. And in the end, I don’t think there is one: I think it’s a complex web of characters and their relationships and that makes it huge fun to read.
And, in response to this fight for control of the narrative, it seems the narrative itself jumps from one style to another. Sometimes it feels like we are reading a gangster novel, at other times it’s like a western. Sometimes, it has a dystopian feel to it, at other times it’s steampunk. There’s a chapter that is, in essence, a graphic novel but written in words describing the pictures (you’ll see what I mean when you read it).
I also enjoyed, although I know this is the kind of thing that will drive other readers mad, the fact that Barry does not explain how Ireland got to be the Ireland we are in during this book. There’s no history or timeline that explains how to get from now to then. For me, that separation from our world somehow seems appropriate to the narrative and to the insular nature of the community.
This is great story-telling that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
What I enjoyed most here is the way Barry holds so many different things at the front of his story. There’s a lot of fighting for control of Bohane, but it seems equally true that characters are fighting for dominance in the narrative. Is this the story of a love triangle between two gangland bosses and a woman they both love? Or is it the story of a ruthless young woman seeking her own position of power? Or is it a story of gangland warfare for control of a city. I could continue this because the book is full of twists and turns that cause the reader to continually re-evaluate what the main story is that is being told. And in the end, I don’t think there is one: I think it’s a complex web of characters and their relationships and that makes it huge fun to read.
And, in response to this fight for control of the narrative, it seems the narrative itself jumps from one style to another. Sometimes it feels like we are reading a gangster novel, at other times it’s like a western. Sometimes, it has a dystopian feel to it, at other times it’s steampunk. There’s a chapter that is, in essence, a graphic novel but written in words describing the pictures (you’ll see what I mean when you read it).
I also enjoyed, although I know this is the kind of thing that will drive other readers mad, the fact that Barry does not explain how Ireland got to be the Ireland we are in during this book. There’s no history or timeline that explains how to get from now to then. For me, that separation from our world somehow seems appropriate to the narrative and to the insular nature of the community.
This is great story-telling that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
May 9, 2013
What a tasty feast this was! I suspect this book will either be devoured with great relish or it will have you demanding to be excused from the table - pronto. Be prepared for something different from almost any other book you might pick up to read. A fresh idea, what a novelty!
As the story opens, the city 'had taken to the winter like an old dog to its blanket'. Bohane is over-run with street gangs. The reader will need to hang tough with the street jargon and just roll with it. Context is king here, and you'll get used to it soon enough. There are "f" bombs aplenty, so be advised. If this is a deal-breaker for you, you'll want to find something else to read.
Loved the author's descriptions of the folk of Bohane. 'Tommy the Keep, a wee hairy-chested turnip of a man', and The Gant, who 'had a pair of hands on him the size of Belfast sinks'. And how about this one - 'Eyes Cusack, named so for the two tiny smoking holes set deep in a broad porridgy face'. It was noted that Eyes Cusack also sported an unfortunate calypso-style mustache.
We learn of mute children who have the gift o' goat-speak, and we are admonished to always be wary of a thin butcher. There are herb pipes and dream pipes, winklepickers, and smiles packed with nuance. The mention of a Zippo lighter ('no other providing sufficient protection against the abrupt gusts') was fun.
This was a first-reads giveaway and it is a keeper, thank you. I was genuinely sorry for it to be over.
As the story opens, the city 'had taken to the winter like an old dog to its blanket'. Bohane is over-run with street gangs. The reader will need to hang tough with the street jargon and just roll with it. Context is king here, and you'll get used to it soon enough. There are "f" bombs aplenty, so be advised. If this is a deal-breaker for you, you'll want to find something else to read.
Loved the author's descriptions of the folk of Bohane. 'Tommy the Keep, a wee hairy-chested turnip of a man', and The Gant, who 'had a pair of hands on him the size of Belfast sinks'. And how about this one - 'Eyes Cusack, named so for the two tiny smoking holes set deep in a broad porridgy face'. It was noted that Eyes Cusack also sported an unfortunate calypso-style mustache.
We learn of mute children who have the gift o' goat-speak, and we are admonished to always be wary of a thin butcher. There are herb pipes and dream pipes, winklepickers, and smiles packed with nuance. The mention of a Zippo lighter ('no other providing sufficient protection against the abrupt gusts') was fun.
This was a first-reads giveaway and it is a keeper, thank you. I was genuinely sorry for it to be over.
October 6, 2011
I love this book so far. The language in both the dialogue and the narration is fantastic. It just pops.
And there's a lot of really meaty subject matter going on- Revenge, love, growing old, legacies... Awesome.
Also, I promise that my endorsement of this book is not affected by the fact that Graywolf is publishing the US edition in March 2012. Honest. This book is straight legit. I am, however, super excited that we're going to be publishing the US edition in March 2012.
***Update***
The end of this book was great. It's this huge, building montage. The action is happening and not happening, and throughout the whole thing is a tinge of regret.
Regardless of who is publishing this book, CITY OF BOHANE is probably one of my favorite books that I've ever read.
And there's a lot of really meaty subject matter going on- Revenge, love, growing old, legacies... Awesome.
Also, I promise that my endorsement of this book is not affected by the fact that Graywolf is publishing the US edition in March 2012. Honest. This book is straight legit. I am, however, super excited that we're going to be publishing the US edition in March 2012.
***Update***
The end of this book was great. It's this huge, building montage. The action is happening and not happening, and throughout the whole thing is a tinge of regret.
Regardless of who is publishing this book, CITY OF BOHANE is probably one of my favorite books that I've ever read.
May 19, 2015
Sure it's another dystopian novel, but Barry mines the Celtic archetypes to create a truly original visionary work of genius and linguistic brilliance. What is it about Irish writers that transforms English prose into poetry? The neologisms, the dialect, the beautiful rhythms of a well-wrought line, the poetry of the everyday, the evocation of a place long gone in a future that will never be but might have been. Though the lives described are bleak, the descriptions themselves are beautiful. Joyce could not have done better. It is a fine portrait of a sad city that, like Ireland, is permeated with nostalgia for the glory of the past, the smoke of peat fires, the cancer of religion, addictive behaviors, a love of stylish clothing, and a predilection for violence. Though the taint that affects Bohane is attributed to the river, it clearly derives from the people, their clannishness and feuds, their loves and hates that outlive generations. If you love the playful beauty of language, you will love this book. It is a remarkable achievement for a debut novel and well worth the time invested in reading it.
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August 28, 2023One of these books that you start and immediately know you're going to love, one of those books where you go, 'right, this is why I spend all of my time and most of my money reading.' What genre writing could be if we were all smarter than we are. Written in this bizarre but understandable future slang, the story of an imaginary city in a post-collapse era on the West Coast of Ireland and the criminal gangs which feud there. Violent, nostalgic, lovely, sad, beautiful, I just loved this book. You should absolutely read it. I wish I had gotten to it before I had written Low Town, I could have stolen a lot from it.
This story of saudade-riddled gangsters warring for a ruined city in a dim future Ireland remains a personal favorite after a second read. The language is fabulous, the action is brutal, it's lyrical and funny and sad and quick and lots of fun. Definitely check it out if you haven't.
This story of saudade-riddled gangsters warring for a ruined city in a dim future Ireland remains a personal favorite after a second read. The language is fabulous, the action is brutal, it's lyrical and funny and sad and quick and lots of fun. Definitely check it out if you haven't.
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July 12, 2021Имах очаквания по отношение на тази книга, но нещо не ми потръгна добре и май няма да я довърша.
Романът е анти-утопия, ситуирана в Ирландия. Самия автор е ирландец, а тяхната литература по принцип си е малко особена , със свой специфичен почерк.
Романът е мрачен (и на този фон корицата, наподобяваща икейски свещници за чаени свещички тип коледни къщички, ми е доста озадачаваща.. ), а действието се развива в блата, изоставени панелки, западнали дискотеки. Някакъв мафиотски анти-утопичен трилър за съперничества на различни банди за територии. Не знам как по-точно да го определя.
Не ми д��падна езика - жаргонен, хъшлашки.
Романът е анти-утопия, ситуирана в Ирландия. Самия автор е ирландец, а тяхната литература по принцип си е малко особена , със свой специфичен почерк.
Романът е мрачен (и на този фон корицата, наподобяваща икейски свещници за чаени свещички тип коледни къщички, ми е доста озадачаваща.. ), а действието се развива в блата, изоставени панелки, западнали дискотеки. Някакъв мафиотски анти-утопичен трилър за съперничества на различни банди за територии. Не знам как по-точно да го определя.
Не ми д��падна езика - жаргонен, хъшлашки.
October 1, 2011
I picked up City of Bohane expecting a book of gang warfare, of violent dystopian action perhaps in the expected mode of such stories (think Gangs of New York) in which events build to an brutal, climactic showdown. But City of Bohane isn't that book, it's far more than that, and reducing it "just" bloody violence would be a shame.
Though there is plenty of violence, and more often the threat of it, that's not the point. Those scenes are often deemphasized when they arrive, overshadowed by the long, paranoid waits they punctuate. Waits during which characters reminisce about "the lost-time," a glorious, glamorous past so palpably at odds with the run-down, musty present of Bohane city. These are characters — even the toughest, most violence gangsters among them — more focused on surface than substance (and the recurrence of rich, showy descriptions of dress makes that clear) even as the world rots around them.
In a way, that sense of rot reminded of nothing so much as Aidan Higgins' Langrishe, Go Down , that classic of deadly, paralytic Irish nostalgia. And I couldn't help thinking, as I read, that Kevin Barry's real accomplishment here is one of misdirection: to make readers expect, as I did, the almost prurient gratification of a violent thriller only to make us aware of how we're missing the point, and prolonging the problem, by asking for that. Because in a city where everyone is obsessed with a past that has come and gone, those few with vision enough to imagine the future — and the force of will to not be defined by what's happened before — stand poised to seize power simply because no one else can imagine a change.
Though there is plenty of violence, and more often the threat of it, that's not the point. Those scenes are often deemphasized when they arrive, overshadowed by the long, paranoid waits they punctuate. Waits during which characters reminisce about "the lost-time," a glorious, glamorous past so palpably at odds with the run-down, musty present of Bohane city. These are characters — even the toughest, most violence gangsters among them — more focused on surface than substance (and the recurrence of rich, showy descriptions of dress makes that clear) even as the world rots around them.
In a way, that sense of rot reminded of nothing so much as Aidan Higgins' Langrishe, Go Down , that classic of deadly, paralytic Irish nostalgia. And I couldn't help thinking, as I read, that Kevin Barry's real accomplishment here is one of misdirection: to make readers expect, as I did, the almost prurient gratification of a violent thriller only to make us aware of how we're missing the point, and prolonging the problem, by asking for that. Because in a city where everyone is obsessed with a past that has come and gone, those few with vision enough to imagine the future — and the force of will to not be defined by what's happened before — stand poised to seize power simply because no one else can imagine a change.
February 14, 2012
Profane, cinematic, hilarious, elegiac, brutal, poetic, original. I found City of Bohane to be all these things and more. The language is amazing. It took me a chapter or two to adjust to the vernacular Kevin Barry's characters employ, but it was well worth the effort. (You can view the author reading from the book at http://vimeo.com/28112291)
At the center of the story is the struggle between rival gangs for control of the Irish city of Bohane, but there are also several fascinating subplots involving the personal lives of the gang members. The story takes place in 2053 or thereabouts but this is a world where people interact face to face, not electronically. Mastery of technology is not what's important in Bohane; it's loyalty, charisma and ruthlessness that are indispensable in the age old pursuit of power.
I can't overstate how much I reveled in the language of this book. Two small examples:
"Mouth of teeth on him like a vandalised graveyard but we all have our crosses."
"Macu, polite as the seeping of a poison"
There are many other examples but chances are they're too bawdy or profane to post here. And be forewarned that these pages are populated by people who are not shy about employing slurs.
I would recommend City of Bohane to readers who like books by Paul Murray, Irvine Welsh, Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos. Also recommended to lovers of Irish fiction and literary fiction readers for whom language is paramount.
If you think of books in cinematic terms, I would compare this novel to the films of Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, and Guy Ritchie.
So visit Bohane. I found it an unforgettable place and I think you will too.
At the center of the story is the struggle between rival gangs for control of the Irish city of Bohane, but there are also several fascinating subplots involving the personal lives of the gang members. The story takes place in 2053 or thereabouts but this is a world where people interact face to face, not electronically. Mastery of technology is not what's important in Bohane; it's loyalty, charisma and ruthlessness that are indispensable in the age old pursuit of power.
I can't overstate how much I reveled in the language of this book. Two small examples:
"Mouth of teeth on him like a vandalised graveyard but we all have our crosses."
"Macu, polite as the seeping of a poison"
There are many other examples but chances are they're too bawdy or profane to post here. And be forewarned that these pages are populated by people who are not shy about employing slurs.
I would recommend City of Bohane to readers who like books by Paul Murray, Irvine Welsh, Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos. Also recommended to lovers of Irish fiction and literary fiction readers for whom language is paramount.
If you think of books in cinematic terms, I would compare this novel to the films of Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, and Guy Ritchie.
So visit Bohane. I found it an unforgettable place and I think you will too.
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August 19, 2021Кевин Бари - "Град Бохейн", изд. ICU, 2021, прев. Елка Виденова
Връщам се от град Бохейн.
Поех натам преди близо две седмици. И смятах, че няма да се забавя дълго - книгата не е с голям обем, от резюмето историята ми се стори интригуваща, а и... все пак... Ирландия. Вярно - Ирландия от едно /не чак толкова/ далечно бъдеще, но все пак.
Когато обаче започнах да чета, разбрах, че съм била напълно неподготвена.
Нека започна с това, че дори сега, след толкова дни, прекарани с тази книга, и дори след затварянето на последната страница, не знам къде да я поставя жанрово. Заради времето на действие и странната обстановка се изкушавам да я определя като антиутопия, а случващоо се в нея "ми говори" за гангстерски роман. Така че, да, знам, че такъв жанр няма, но нека кажем, че за мн е нещо средно между двете.
Другото, което ми се иска да посоча за тази ккнига, е че почти до края всички - наистина всички - персонажи ме бяха твърде неприятни. Търсех нещо, за което да се "захвана", за да харесам някого поне малко, но не го намирах. И някъде след средата... проблясък. Човек, когото вече бях приела като суров и жесток... се оказа момче с прости желания и мечти. И трябваше да знам, още тогава трябваше да знам как ще свърши всичко.
"Град Бохейн", поне за мен, не беше "типичен" роман. Всичко в тази книга е особено - събитията, обстановката, езикът. А езикът е блестящо предаден, благодарение на Елка Виденова.
В заключение мога да кажа едно - град Бохейн не е място за всеки. Н�� ако се престрашите, обещавам, че ще останете изненадани.
Връщам се от град Бохейн.
Поех натам преди близо две седмици. И смятах, че няма да се забавя дълго - книгата не е с голям обем, от резюмето историята ми се стори интригуваща, а и... все пак... Ирландия. Вярно - Ирландия от едно /не чак толкова/ далечно бъдеще, но все пак.
Когато обаче започнах да чета, разбрах, че съм била напълно неподготвена.
Нека започна с това, че дори сега, след толкова дни, прекарани с тази книга, и дори след затварянето на последната страница, не знам къде да я поставя жанрово. Заради времето на действие и странната обстановка се изкушавам да я определя като антиутопия, а случващоо се в нея "ми говори" за гангстерски роман. Така че, да, знам, че такъв жанр няма, но нека кажем, че за мн е нещо средно между двете.
Другото, което ми се иска да посоча за тази ккнига, е че почти до края всички - наистина всички - персонажи ме бяха твърде неприятни. Търсех нещо, за което да се "захвана", за да харесам някого поне малко, но не го намирах. И някъде след средата... проблясък. Човек, когото вече бях приела като суров и жесток... се оказа момче с прости желания и мечти. И трябваше да знам, още тогава трябваше да знам как ще свърши всичко.
"Град Бохейн", поне за мен, не беше "типичен" роман. Всичко в тази книга е особено - събитията, обстановката, езикът. А езикът е блестящо предаден, благодарение на Елка Виденова.
В заключение мога да кажа едно - град Бохейн не е място за всеки. Н�� ако се престрашите, обещавам, че ще останете изненадани.
November 25, 2022
An extraordinary book. The author reads the Audible version passionately; sometimes you can hear him turning the pages which I loved. Because it is in a dialect, futuristic Irish via the Caribbean (ya check me…), it is especially beautiful to listen to. It is good to know going in that it takes place in an imagined future, and the story is evocative, violent, profane, funny, tender, and poetic. It reminded me a little of The Wire with its operatic moments and it’s swagger. I have read one other by Kevin Barry, Beatlebone, which I liked but like this even better.
October 8, 2021
Не знаех какво да очаквам от този роман, чийто сюжет стои по-скоро встрани от читателския ми интерес. Обаче езикът му е разкошен, изцяло ме спечели още от първите страници. Просто нямаше начин да му устоя. Поздравления за преводачката Елка Виденова, която е свършила страхотна работа!
June 8, 2018
City of Bohane takes place 40 years in the future, in a fictional Irish town by the name of Bohane. Some kind of socioeconomic calamity has taken place and the 'distant' past is referred to as "the lost times". It's unclear exactly what has transpired to bring Bohane to it's knees, but all indications are that it was something, as i say, of an economic collapse. The result is that the town is largely run by several gangs that coexist in a fragile detente. Law and order is largely impotent and redundant. But things are coming to a crisis point as the leaders of the various factions are aging and the youngsters are getting frisky.
The almost (at times), inpenetrable 'Oirish' slang make this heavy going at first, but in short order one comes to understand, through the author's deft use of context, the meaning of even the most obscure terms. It gives the story an authenticity that might otherwise be lacking and at times lends a grim humour to what at times is a brutal recital of violence and mayhem.
Quote;
Jenni Ching was on her hands and knees, with her slender rump in the air, and a brass herb-pipe clamped in her gob. She cast over her shoulder a bored glance at the Gant. He looked as if his heart might at any moment explode. His face was purpled, blotched, sweaty.
"If y'wanna take five," she said, jus' holler."
The mocking tone was too much for him, was too delicious, and the Gant spent himself. He fell onto his back and was ashamed then. His heart was a rabid pit bull loose inside his chest.
Jenni Ching consulted the wall clock.
"Three minutes even," she said. "You're comin' on, kid."
and;
Bohane was thrun down, as we say, with winter.
Oh give us a grim Tuesday of December, with the hardwind taking schleps at our heads, and the rain coming slantways off that hideous fucking ocean, and the grapes nearly frozen off us, and the dirty ice caked up top of the puddles, and we are not happy, exactly, but satisfied in our despair.
Highly recommended.
The almost (at times), inpenetrable 'Oirish' slang make this heavy going at first, but in short order one comes to understand, through the author's deft use of context, the meaning of even the most obscure terms. It gives the story an authenticity that might otherwise be lacking and at times lends a grim humour to what at times is a brutal recital of violence and mayhem.
Quote;
Jenni Ching was on her hands and knees, with her slender rump in the air, and a brass herb-pipe clamped in her gob. She cast over her shoulder a bored glance at the Gant. He looked as if his heart might at any moment explode. His face was purpled, blotched, sweaty.
"If y'wanna take five," she said, jus' holler."
The mocking tone was too much for him, was too delicious, and the Gant spent himself. He fell onto his back and was ashamed then. His heart was a rabid pit bull loose inside his chest.
Jenni Ching consulted the wall clock.
"Three minutes even," she said. "You're comin' on, kid."
and;
Bohane was thrun down, as we say, with winter.
Oh give us a grim Tuesday of December, with the hardwind taking schleps at our heads, and the rain coming slantways off that hideous fucking ocean, and the grapes nearly frozen off us, and the dirty ice caked up top of the puddles, and we are not happy, exactly, but satisfied in our despair.
Highly recommended.
May 16, 2012
While reading this book I was reminded of what it's like to read William Gibson's Neuromancer for the first time. At first it's a little unclear what the meat of the story is, but if you just hang on and let the rhythm and cadence of the prose take you for a ride, you will find yourself in a new and fascinating place. And what a place; Bohane is a weird and wild mash-up of Jamaican shanty-towns, Soviet tenements, and Little Italy and Chinatown. It's true that the plot and characters are lacking a little cohesiveness, but ultimately you'll find yourself turning the pages not for the story-line, but to explore the city as Barry describes it. You feel yourself prowling backstreets and lingering in the memories that the lights and the smells conjure. Reading the novel is similar to reading a poem in which the message may be hard to grasp at first, but the language is so rich and deftly wielded that you've got to stop and admire the lush imagery that you find yourself conjuring.
October 14, 2015
I made another stab at finishing this book and failed. Between the unlikable characters,the strange language, the long continuous gang fight and unreal background I found nothing that would hold my interest. A somewhat failed attempt at a first novel, or maybe it's just literature.
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