Reviews and Comments

There are few writers like Patrick Freyne that can make me laugh until tears roll from my eyes and I drop the book on the floor. Even fewer can force me to expel a whimper a few sentences later with a punch-in-the-gut moment of care or grief. And as a journalist, he does this every week with The Irish Times.

This is a book of memoir essays, not my favourite writing form but one that fits Freyne's style. He meanders between comedy and tragedy easily, including hilarious anecdotes of his childhood, his pirate radio misadventures and his band tours (I loved the NPB before he was ever a writer and really enjoyed reading those stories) interspersed with deep, thoughtful essays of his work in a care home or as a journalist. While I loved the laughs, the more touching chapters were the ones that will stay with me. I am left with new thoughts on care and compassion, as well as an increased respect for good journalism. A couple of the essays don't say much, but overall this is a really enjoyable and touching read by an excellent journalist and writer.

I love Mike McCormack's prose and imagination. This Plague of Souls is of his more sinister canon, trailing out a mystery of a protagonist who has arrived home from prison to an empty house, void of his wife and child, and where he receives continuous phone-calls from an unnamed caller who seems obsessed with how he got out of a prison sentence. In the final section, this mystery unspools into another, broader mystery.

While some of the imaginative ideas are rich, such as the backstory of the protagonist and his wife's first living together in rural Ireland, the book failed to form any sense of intrigue. It felt a little like a short story that had been stretched out like an elastic band, that lacked any more content to become whole as a novel. The prose is good throughout, and the book has merit in its involved portrayal of a character who is a chameleon. Enjoyable, not unmissable.

Moten & Harney are well known for their brilliant 2013 book The Undercommons that mostly explores colonial practices in university systems. In All Incomplete they extend these ideas beyond the university, and into a broad discourse on embedded colonialism and philosophy of logistics. They also extend the collaboration to include the photographer Zun Lee, who completes this book with extraordinary street photography and a thoughtful concluding chapter.

Moten & Harney write poetic-academic, and it is not initially easy reading. The content is heavy enough, but as part of their practice of decolonising they also refuse to waste or misuse the English language, and this is a strength. Once I found a rhythm, I loved every paragraph (and reread most of them). So deep is their research, and so rich is the perspective that they present, that no word is wasted in a deceptively short book. The focus is on showing where logistics (and post-Locke colonial philosophy) underpins the 'algorithms' in all of our lives, through an attempt to make smooth these processes.

All Incomplete is personal, poetic and beautiful, and serves as a reminder that logistics (and colonialism) underpins so much of our modern lives, even when we think we are operating counter-to.

Cormac McCarthy concluded his life with two books about two siblings, brother Bobby (the protagonist of the excellent The Passenger) and sister Alicia of Stella Maris. The former is a physics whiz, the latter a maths genius. The trouble (or karma) of their family, including their father's involvement with the Manhattan Project, haunt them.

Both books are philosophical musings on meaning and structure in a strange life. This one is a real gift. The entire story is a dialogue between Alicia and a counsellor in the Stella Maris institute. Alicia muses on life and maths. The dialogues are like Plato's, with different big ideas being drawn out and then punctuated with a touching story of family, hallucinatory friendship, longing and heartache. The dialogue evolves over the 'sessions' so seamlessly that it is impossible not to get lost on the journey with the duo. The questioner often pulls back just when we (the reader) want to know more, and later as familiarity grows the relationship changes between them, and between reader and characters. The achievement that this book is is hard to describe, but it is a worthy parting gift from a master craftsperson of the written word.

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils is written about as a children's book, and in essence it is. Nils is a young mischief-making boy who likes to pick on animals until he is transformed into miniature by an imp. After learning a little humility, Nils goes on to ride with a crew of geese across Sweden, and has many adventures with crows, foxes, ducks, a cow, a dog and other animals, and even some mythical beings and places.

But deeper than this, Lagerlöf has written an environmental call to action that is 100 years ahead of its time. Nils learns to love his world and those in it by becoming part of it. His transformation is gradual but complete, made richer by the wonderful prose and incredible descriptions of Sweden from a goose-eye-view (Lagerlöf must have hired a hot air balloon for research, surely). Myth and story blend with compassion, humour and empathy in short chapters, so many that are wonderful even taken alone. An unforgettable book, for children of mind or body.