Troubles: Winner of the 2010 "Lost Man Booker Prize" for Fiction

Among the bathtubs and the washbasins A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole." "A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford". Derek Mahon. Irish poet Derek Mahon dedicated the haunting poem quoted above to J.G. Farrell, author of "Troubles". It is a marvelous poem that pays tribute to an absolutely marvelous book; one of the finest books I have read in recent memory. Farrell, born in Liverpool in 1935 is best-remembered for three books. "Troubles", "The Siege of Krishnapur" (which won Farrell the U.K.'s 1973 Booker Prize), and "The Singapore Grip". Shortly after publication of "The Singapore Grip" Farrell moved to Ireland. He died a few months later when, apparently while fishing, he was swept out to sea and drowned, at age 44. Each of these three books, known collectively as the "Empire Trilogy, is set during a time of crisis in what was once the British Empire. "The Siege of Krishnapur" is set in India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and "The Singapore Grip" is set in Singapore at the beginning of World War II at the time of the Japanese attack and occupation of Singapore. "Troubles" takes place in the Irish countryside in 1920, at the height of the turbulence that resulted in the creation of the Irish Republic and the eventual partition of Ireland. The protagonist, the English Major Brendan Archer, is a survivor of the Great War. Upon his demobilization Archer decides to travel from his home in London to Ireland in order to finalize his relationship with Angela Spencer, a young lady he met and perhaps became engaged to, while on leave during the war. Angela's father runs what was once a grand hotel, The Majestic, and Archer finds himself immediately swept up in the collapse of what was once a thriving Anglo-Irish community in Ireland. The Majestic is a mess; it is rotting from within in much the same way that English dominion in Ireland is rotting from without. "Troubles" looks both at the isolated, and fairly bizarre world of the inhabitants of the Majestic while the Irish rebellion creeps closer and closer to intruding on their world. "Troubles" is an admirable and sometimes uncomfortable mixture of drama and comedy. Some have compared the comedic elements of "Troubles" to the best of Evelyn Waugh and the comparison is certainly apt. I'd only add that Farrell's dark humor is tinted with an element of semi-tragic slapstick such that, given its hotel setting, I could not help but be reminded of John Cleese's "Fawlty Towers". Yet, at the same time, there is an ineffable sadness that permeates the story. Major Archer, whose wartime experiences are only hinted at, is portrayed as a well-intentioned but singularly ineffectual protagonist. He sees the physical rot that surrounds him but is powerless to stop it. He falls in love but his pining and puppy dog-like attempts at courting are rebuffed with so much condescension that I could only wonder why he continued to bother. I echo the two previous reviewers who have warned reade

Other reviewers on this site have praised the historical and political qualities of this fine novel, but few have emphasized how funny it is. On its surface, it is a leisurely and consistently amusing social comedy in which very little actually happens. Major Brendan Archer, recovering from the trauma of the trenches, comes to a large hotel in the South of Ireland owned by the fierce Anglo-Irish patriarch Edward Spencer, to whose daughter Angela the Major had somehow become engaged some years before. But Angela remains elusive and the Major finds himself in limbo, staying on at the decaying hotel filled with cats and old ladies. People here see only what they want to see; despite domestic disasters, life must be carried on as usual, culminating in one final grand ball held amid the rubble -- a set piece worthy of a comic Tolstoy. While also serving as acute social commentary, Farrell's vision of a world prolonged by wilful blindness is essentially a comic one that could be told in no other way. Two persistent tensions underlie the comedy: one erotic, the other political. The Major, who is emotionally naive, finds himself dealing with cross-currents of sexual attraction that he is ill-equipped to handle. And this crumbling bastion of Empire finds itself isolated in the tide of Irish nationalism, amid an increasing cycle of terrorism and reprisals. Slowly but inexorably, the comedy of manners metamorphoses into something else. But whether sexual or political (the two seem closely connected), almost all the events in this gathering crisis happen offstage. In this, Farrell shows his debt to Elizabeth Bowen, whose novel THE LAST SEPTEMBER deals with the same period in a similarly oblique way. Bowen's wit may be more refined, but Farrell's range is wider, from dry understatement to outright farce. And he loses nothing for casting his powerful story as a comedy. A word of warning. John Banville's introduction to the New York Review of Books paperback edition is excellent and a great help to the reader for three of its five pages. But there is a **serious spoiler** on the fourth page (page x as printed) which I now realize colored my reading of the entire book. For readers needing to know more of the political background in advance, my advice would be to look up the Irish War of Independence on Wikipedia (not "Troubles" which returns an article on the later strife in Northern Ireland) and save the Banville essay for reading as an afterword. TROUBLES in the first novel in Farrell's "Empire Trilogy." The other two books, which are arguably even stronger, are THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR, set in 19th-century India at the time of the Sepoy Rebellion, and THE SINGAPORE GRIP, in Malaya just before the 1942 Japanese invasion.

I've now read all three of Farrell's trilogy on the fall of British colonialism. What is fascinating to me is the recurrent images in the three books of big houses falling into disrepair (for different reasons), dogs, and John Bull Brits who cannot understand why the races they "oversee" do not appreciate the "benefits of civilization" that the Brits have "bestowed" on them. Also, each book's point of view is told from the Brits' vantage (or the Anglo-Irish, in the Troubles), with little POV from the oppressed peoples. The latter are a mute force that the Brits can barely comprehend. Each book is different in its circumstances, of course. Yet the three together form an poignant description of a lost world. And each magnificently uses strange, eccentric characters and black humor to make its points without being didactic or boring. Of the three, Troubles is my least favorite, in part because I thought the metaphor of the decaying house got beat to death in this one. Also, there is generally less action than in Singapore Grip and Siege of Krishnapur. Yet choosing among the three is a bit like arguing about which was Picasso's greatest painting. Farrell's sure hand is there as he presents his characters with an ironic but sympathetic touch, and makes his points without being preachy.

Originally published in 1970 and newly reprinted, Troubles, the story of Ireland's fight for independence from 1919 - 1922, illuminates the attitudes and insensitivities which made revolution a necessity for the Irish people. Farrell also, however, focuses on the personal, human costs to the residential Anglo-Irish aristocracy as they find themselves being driven out of their "homes." Edward Spencer, a conservative Protestant loyalist, runs a decaying 300-room hotel on the coast of County Wexford. Regarding himself as a benevolent landowner, he nevertheless demands total submission of his tenants and the signing of a loyalty oath to the King. His ironically named Majestic Hotel, lacking maintenance during the war and its aftermath, is now too costly to repair. When British Major Brendan Archer, newly released from hospital, arrives at the Majestic to reintroduce himself to his fiancée Angela, daughter of the proprietor, the reader quickly sees the Majestic as the symbol of a faded aristocracy which has outlived its usefulness. The windows are broken, the roof is leaking, and decorative gewgaws and balconies are hanging loosely, threatening to crash. Walls, floors, and even ceilings, are swelling and cracking from vegetation run wild, and the hotel's ironically named Imperial Bar is "boiling with cats," some of which live inside upholstered chairs and all of which subsist on a diet of rats and mice. Irish rebels live just outside the hotel's perimeter.With wry humor and a formidable talent for description, Farrell conjures up nightmarish images of life in the hotel, selecting small, vivid details to make the larger thematic picture more real. Homely details enlarge his canvas and bring his symbolism home to the reader as the rebellion by the Irish poor continues to grow and affect life within the microcosm of the Majestic. The reader's feeling of claustrophobia and the need to escape builds, and one is not surprised when violence strikes.By injecting small news stories throughout the narrative, Farrell informs the reader about the progress of the rebellion. He also sets up global parallels, widening his scope by reporting problems in India, South Africa, and other parts of the Empire, along with the Chicago Riots and the Bolshevist attacks in Kiev. Humor and sometimes satire leaven even the most emotional moments, and Farrell paints his characters with a broad brush which makes one constantly aware of their absurdity. Clearly delineating the emotional issues behind the drive for Irish independence, Farrell makes the reader see both sides with empathy. When Edward and the Major finally begin to shoot the Majestic's cats in preparation for a large ball, the reader is prepared for a final round of violence at the Majestic and almost welcomes it. Mary Whipple

This novel predates Farrell's Booker Prize-winning novel The Siege of Krishnapur by several years, but it's nearly as good. Set during "the Troubles" in Ireland in the early 1920s, it tells the story of a failing resort hotel, run by a dotty Anglo-Irish family, as seen through the eyes of a veteran of World War I, a shell-shocked British major. Most of violence of the Irish Rebellion takes place offstage, as the family scheme and intrigue against each other, and as the Major hopelessly woos an ironic Irish girl. Troubles is one of those rare books with a successful central metaphor: the hotel itself--leaking, nearly empty, infested with cats--standing in for the decaying Anglo-Irish ascendancy, as forces the Anglo-Irish barely understand creep in from outside to destroy their way of life. Nabokov was a big influence on Farrell, and the prose is elegant and clear-eyed and compassionate all at once. The book is funny, slyly satirical, suspenseful, and even a bit rueful for the loss of this silly way of life. Troubles is a wonderful book.