Postscript update:
I seem to have a knack for reading jerky male writers who have #MeToo problems. I find out afterwards, of course — although I supposed I could do a bit of research. I thnk I should stick with women writers for a while. Anyway, here’s Colum McCann:
Carry on.
I read 13 ways of looking on the recommendation of a friend. It’s good. It’s fine. It’s lovely and beautiful. Whatever.
To be honest, it was kind of boring. And I realized in the middle of reading it that I’m pretty prejudiced against Irish writers. Ever more so if they haven’t shaken Ireland and being Irish out of themselves (which is hard to do, obviously).
Not because they’re bad, but because they’re good. Too good. It’s kind of boring and redundant to read an Irish author who has a lovely way with words, sad but poignant insight into human emotions, can evoke the existential majesty and effervescence of life, aging, self-reflection. Catholicism. All of it. Other themes; gawking at America, paeans to earlier generations and family members, and “he emigrant’s desire to root around in the old soil.”
I mean, I’m owning my prejudice here. But I’m done with it. Been there, done that. Don’t really need or want to read any more of it. Not from the Irish.
I’m sure I will succumb again, on the advice of earnest friends who are deeply touched by this great novelist or that funny memoir or another brilliant New Yorker essay.
Irish, for me, is not a feature, but an advantage that should be overcome to earn my reading respect. I’m prejudiced against Irish writers not because they’re bad, but because they’re good and it all seems too easy and, by now, redundant.
ENDS//
