The Modern Library by Colm Tóibín, Carmen Callil Page A
Authors: Colm Tóibín, Carmen Callil
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the French. And all the time, in stray references, but stitched carefully into the fabric of the story, is an absence, a missing loved one, longed for, loathed (in one section), remembered, brought to mind.
William H. Gass was born in North Dakota and has lived in St Louis since 1969. His novels include Omensetter’s Luck (1966) and The Tunnel (1996). He is also a well-known critic.
Age in year of publication: forty-four.
Maurice Gee 1931–
1978 Plumb
‘I have never wished for comfort, but for thorns, for battle in the soul’s arena. I have had what I wished for.’ So speaks George Plumb, a stiff-necked New Zealand clergyman whose story begins in the 1890s and continues through the first half of this century.
Plumb’s fanaticism leads him by the nose from Presbyterianism to Unitarianism to pacifism until no religion is good enough for him. But he’s a worthy soul and a loving man, one of those men who are always right and like other such paragons considers constant impregnation of his slaving wife Edie ‘– in her weariness, in her pain, she praised: scouring pans, mopping floors’ – to be his Christian duty. And so the novel reaches out to trace the erosive effect of mindless righteousness on their ten children, centring most of all on the homosexual Alf. George’s fundamentalism , pinched and sour, placidly overshadows and shrivels all those in his care.
There is a tenderness and charm about Gee’s writing, and an understanding in his onslaught on the Puritan tradition – flourishing vigorously in New Zealand – which manages to be compassionate yet deadly. Redolent with the atmosphere of an antipodean world reconstructed with fidelity and warmth, this is a novel thoroughly satisfying in the traditional manner, engraved with the lore of family life.
Maurice Gee was born in Whakatane, North Island, New Zealand. Plumb won the New Zealand Fiction Award and the Wattie Book of the Year Award, and was followed by two sequels: Meg (1981) and Sole Survivor (1983).
Age in year of publication: forty-seven.
Kaye Gibbons 1960–
1987 Ellen Foster
There is music in the language of the American South. The sounds come from the words Southerners choose, the dialogue, the laying down of words in a particular order – the nearest to it, when listened to, is Irish.
Kaye Gibbons writes in the cadence of the South, which she puts into the voice of Ellen Foster, whose opening words, ‘When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy’, drop us into the company of a terrified little girl who knows too much about what’s going on. Daddy drinks, Mummy is sick to dying; Daddy likes to beat up both of them. Her only place of safety is the coloured house down the road with her friend Starletta, but how can she eat a coloured biscuit or walk down a coloured pathway? She can though, and more, as she is soon to learn.
Ellen has a way of getting through: she must love, and she sets out to find someone to do it with. Her story tells us more about race in the South than any social history, for as we listen to Ellen, we are told Starletta’s story too. Kaye Gibbons is a clever writer with an ear for the rhythm and beauty of language, and a way of conveying the fragility of life which is direct and fresh, keen-witted, always original.
Kaye Gibbons was born in North Carolina where she still lives. Amongst her award-winning novels are A Virtuous Woman (1989) and Sights Unseen (1995).
Age in year of publication: twenty-seven.
William Golding 1911–1993
1954 Lord of the Flies
The idea behind this novel should be fatal: it tells us that within us all, eagerly waiting to be let out, lie savages. But the power of the narrative and the characterization overcomes the crudity of the idea and forces the reader to become deeply involved in the story and the fate of the small English boys who have survived an air crash on a desert island. At first they are bewildered and find it
William H. Gass was born in North Dakota and has lived in St Louis since 1969. His novels include Omensetter’s Luck (1966) and The Tunnel (1996). He is also a well-known critic.
Age in year of publication: forty-four.
Maurice Gee 1931–
1978 Plumb
‘I have never wished for comfort, but for thorns, for battle in the soul’s arena. I have had what I wished for.’ So speaks George Plumb, a stiff-necked New Zealand clergyman whose story begins in the 1890s and continues through the first half of this century.
Plumb’s fanaticism leads him by the nose from Presbyterianism to Unitarianism to pacifism until no religion is good enough for him. But he’s a worthy soul and a loving man, one of those men who are always right and like other such paragons considers constant impregnation of his slaving wife Edie ‘– in her weariness, in her pain, she praised: scouring pans, mopping floors’ – to be his Christian duty. And so the novel reaches out to trace the erosive effect of mindless righteousness on their ten children, centring most of all on the homosexual Alf. George’s fundamentalism , pinched and sour, placidly overshadows and shrivels all those in his care.
There is a tenderness and charm about Gee’s writing, and an understanding in his onslaught on the Puritan tradition – flourishing vigorously in New Zealand – which manages to be compassionate yet deadly. Redolent with the atmosphere of an antipodean world reconstructed with fidelity and warmth, this is a novel thoroughly satisfying in the traditional manner, engraved with the lore of family life.
Maurice Gee was born in Whakatane, North Island, New Zealand. Plumb won the New Zealand Fiction Award and the Wattie Book of the Year Award, and was followed by two sequels: Meg (1981) and Sole Survivor (1983).
Age in year of publication: forty-seven.
Kaye Gibbons 1960–
1987 Ellen Foster
There is music in the language of the American South. The sounds come from the words Southerners choose, the dialogue, the laying down of words in a particular order – the nearest to it, when listened to, is Irish.
Kaye Gibbons writes in the cadence of the South, which she puts into the voice of Ellen Foster, whose opening words, ‘When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy’, drop us into the company of a terrified little girl who knows too much about what’s going on. Daddy drinks, Mummy is sick to dying; Daddy likes to beat up both of them. Her only place of safety is the coloured house down the road with her friend Starletta, but how can she eat a coloured biscuit or walk down a coloured pathway? She can though, and more, as she is soon to learn.
Ellen has a way of getting through: she must love, and she sets out to find someone to do it with. Her story tells us more about race in the South than any social history, for as we listen to Ellen, we are told Starletta’s story too. Kaye Gibbons is a clever writer with an ear for the rhythm and beauty of language, and a way of conveying the fragility of life which is direct and fresh, keen-witted, always original.
Kaye Gibbons was born in North Carolina where she still lives. Amongst her award-winning novels are A Virtuous Woman (1989) and Sights Unseen (1995).
Age in year of publication: twenty-seven.
William Golding 1911–1993
1954 Lord of the Flies
The idea behind this novel should be fatal: it tells us that within us all, eagerly waiting to be let out, lie savages. But the power of the narrative and the characterization overcomes the crudity of the idea and forces the reader to become deeply involved in the story and the fate of the small English boys who have survived an air crash on a desert island. At first they are bewildered and find it
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