On Canaan's Side

Sep 25, 2011 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, america, domestic-and-relationship-fiction, europe-and-british-isles

The lad knows how to unspool a yarn, that is for certain.

If you're planning to read this book, I would caution you against reading long detailed reviews about the plot and characters. The story really needs to unfold at the author's pace in the proper sequence. If you have hints of what's coming, it will dull your enjoyment of the book.

JUST THE BASICS: Lilly is an 89-year-old woman who is preparing to take her own life. Her grandson Bill has committed suicide, which is just one too many losses...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Fionnuala rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read three of Sebastian Barry's books so far, The Secret Scripture, Annie Dunne and this one. In all of them, he shows himself to be capable of creating hugely memorable characters and of relaying their thoughts in such beautiful language that I find myself rereading passages frequently. This is writing to savour like good wine, full of intense expression and deep feeling. I think my favourite of the three is Annie Dunne because Barry hardly bothers with any plot at all so the spare story...more I have read three of Sebastian Barry's books so far, The Secret Scripture, Annie Dunne and this one. In all of them, he shows himself to be capable of creating hugely memorable characters and of relaying their thoughts in such beautiful language that I find myself rereading passages frequently. This is writing to savour like good wine, full of intense expression and deep feeling. I think my favourite of the three is Annie Dunne because Barry hardly bothers with any plot at all so the spare story is carried along by the beauty of the writing alone. I had a problem with the unlikely conjunction of circumstances in the plot of The Secret Scripture and that marred for me an otherwise moving reading experience. I very nearly had the same reaction to the plot twists he weaves into On Canaan's Side but on reflection, I feel that he managed this one more successfully, that some of the coincidences which occur are more fitting, and the ending just right.
Spoiler alert.
The only quibble I have is the very broad range of the story - not so much the accumulation of war scarred relatives - I think that is unfortunately all too credible - but the veiled allusions to the Kennedy family, the Martin Luther King references, and the miscegenation theme. Barry can write so well and so easily about the generation of Irish people who lived through the war of independence that I wonder if it isn't his publishers who have put pressure on him to broaden his themes and to add extra sensational plotting to appeal to a wider audience. He captures so well the dilemma Irish people of the early twentieth century faced as the old colonial power began to loose its hold on Ireland. Some had been in the resistance, others had collaborated with the old regime and they all had to work out some entente after independence. There were many tragedies as a result and everyone paid a price, perpetrators as well as victims. I think the paid assassin character is very interesting and his story might have been developed more but of course, since the account was all from Lily's point of view, and unless a convenient diary or some documentation was found later, that was impossible. In spite of those reservations, I am convinced that Sebastian Barry is a fine writer and I will look out for more books by him.
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Aug 16, 2011 Dem rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I started this book I just read the first 30 pages and did not get back to it until the next day and when I picked it up again I was hooked and could not put it down I really enjoyed this novel. I had previously read The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry and loved it so was looking forward to this book.

This book is long listed for the Booker Prize and tells the story of 89 year old Lilly Dunne's departure from Ireland with her boyfriend Tadg who was a member of the Black and Tans and the...more When I started this book I just read the first 30 pages and did not get back to it until the next day and when I picked it up again I was hooked and could not put it down I really enjoyed this novel. I had previously read The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry and loved it so was looking forward to this book.

This book is long listed for the Booker Prize and tells the story of 89 year old Lilly Dunne's departure from Ireland with her boyfriend Tadg who was a member of the Black and Tans and the IRA have a price on his head. This departure from Ireland takes place shortly after the first world war and tells the story of Lilly's new life in America. The story opens with the death of Lilly's grandson Bill and from here Lilly remembers back on her life in Ireland and America and her adventures include fake identies, the IRA, betrayal, love, loss and hope. Each chapter is narrated by Lilly as each day slowly passes since the burial of her grandson Bill and she remembers her life as she has lived it.

The prose in this book is beautiful and the story is really well told. The first 30 pages of this Novel I was a little fazed as to where the story was going but after the initial first couple of chapters the story flows and I could not put it down. There is a lot in this book and so much that Barry leaves to the imagination. Quite a few issues come up in the book and are not fully explained or dealt with by Barry but I feel that is how real life is and perfer this sort of novel than one where all the loose ends are tied up as this is not a protrayal of real life and I love the fact that Barry leaves plenty to the imagination in this book. This is a short novel and a very easy read.

Ok! then why the 4 starts?(would have given it 4.5 if I could) I did not understand or like how the novel ended, and I can not get it out of my head !! I am looking forward to other readers opinions and I think there will be plenty!! Did Barry do this on purpose? Perhaps, as I can imagine this aspect of the book will make for a great Bookclub discussion and I for one will be putting my vote on this book at my next bookclub meeting.

To sum this book up a great read, a real page turner and a great bookclub read.

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May 23, 2012 Elaine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks

As I neared the end of this novel, I felt, as Lily must have. that her death would also be the end of Willie, Annie Dunne and their father. They lived on only in her memory, Lily being the last of the family to die.

Willie's experiences in World War I are told as he lived through them in the first novel of this trilogy, A Long, Long Way. Annie's, told in Annie Dunne. are plans for the future, as well as memories. Lily's are wholly in reminiscences.

So brilliantly is each done that you feel as the...more

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Dec 31, 2012 A. Mary Murphy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: irish-novels

I think this book wants to be an epic, but it never makes it. There are many wars, races, nations, events, but it just never comes together as a grand story. The major shortcoming is Lilly, the protagonist and narrator. Barry did a much stronger job of creating an aged Irish woman when he wrote Roseanne in The Secret Scripture. There are problems of voice with Lilly. Rarely does she speak as an Irish person, even though she was nearly twenty when she emigrated. The occasional little phrase is dr...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

“What use was the lighthouse’s light to those on land, I never knew, giving light to heather and fields, but really desiring to put that moon path of silver light along the tundras and swells of the Wicklow sea” (19).
“Oh yes I am thinking the human soul is a very slight thing, and not much evolution has gone into it I fear. It is a vague slight notion with not even a proper niche in the body. And yet is the only thing we have that God will measure” (25).
“…I traipsed back the way I had come, at l...more

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Sep 22, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bittersweet, british, historical-fiction, ireland

This is now the third book I've read by Sebastian Barry and I'm beginning to love his writing style. He has sentences that are bleak, thought-provoking, and wonderful. I've enjoyed several plays written by Conor McPherson, and I feel like Barry is the novelist equivalent of this fantastic playwright.

This latest novel is very, very good, and I couldn't wait for more of the story to reveal itself (which is what his stories do), but it also felt very similar to "The Secret Scripture." And, althoug...more

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May 17, 2013 Patti rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love this author. Some of the most beautiful prose ever written. Sebastian Barry is an Irish man, but somehow knows the heart of complicated, yet very real, elderly women. (Read his "The Secret Scripture.)

In "On Canaan's Side"...

Written in 1st person, we are told of Lilly Bere's life. It begins as she, an 85 year old, mourns the death of her grandson. The author shows us her painful past through her narrative. She was forced to flee Ireland at the end of WWI with her new husband, and years of...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Usha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

this is one of the most sensitively written books i have come across in a long time.
the life of lilly bere and her dramatic, terrifying and most defining relationship with tadg, which brings her to america....her marriage to joe and the birth of her son ed.
the wars which killed her brother willie, consumed the soul of her son ed and left a shell in its stead, which shocked a young bill her beloved grandson who sees oil fields being burnt in kuwait and people running to escape the war....are al...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Melitta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A rather lovely book, although a main theme is death. Although quite a short book (250 pages), it tells many stories: It is the story of the long life of a woman from her birth in Ireland to her probably death in the US, and the men around which her life was lived. It is also the story of how wars alter our own history, and how it almost does not matter when you were born in the last 150 years, there was a war in which each generation of men were killed, or so maimed emotionally or physically th...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Kimberly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I almost gave this book five stars, and I'm not sure exactly why I didn't except that I liked Barry's book The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty even better (I'll give that one five stars). I'll definitely read anything I can find by this writer for his lyrical style and his psychological depth. On Canaan's side is a retrospective story of an Irish woman who flees her country in the early 20th century because she's on a republican/rebel "death list" due to suspicion that she tipped off the Black and...more

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Sep 24, 2012 Marvin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another (after The Secret Scripture) absolutely beautiful novel by Sebastian Barry. This one, too, is narrated by an old Irish woman, though this time one who immigrated to America after World War I. Barry is a rare writer who could probably get away without providing much of a plot, he writes so beautifully. (I was tempted to interrupt my wife on almost every page to read aloud a beautiful sentence or passage.) But he does, in fact, give us a compelling story of a working-class Irish immigrant...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Katerina Malakate rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

http://www.diavazontas.blogspot.gr/20...

Όταν ξεκίνησα το «Εις γην Χαναάν», πίστεψα πως το βιβλίο συνεισέφερε στη δυσφορία και στο αίσθημα κατάθλιψης που με κατέβαλλε τις τελευταίες μέρες. Είχα άδικο, είναι η πολιτική επικαιρότητα που με αφήνει σε αυτό το ασφυκτικό δίλημμα που ευθύνεται για την κατάστασή μου. Είναι η γαμοαίσθηση πως και δημοψήφισμα να γινότανε θα ψήφιζα όχι με την κρυφή ελπίδα οι άλλοι να ψηφίσουν ναι. Όπως ακριβώς έκαναν και οι «βουλευτές» μας, εν ολίγοις. Μπρος γκρεμός και πίσω...more
http://www.diavazontas.blogspot.gr/20...

Όταν ξεκίνησα το «Εις γην Χαναάν», πίστεψα πως το βιβλίο συνεισέφερε στη δυσφορία και στο αίσθημα κατάθλιψης που με κατέβαλλε τις τελευταίες μέρες. Είχα άδικο, είναι η πολιτική επικαιρότητα που με αφήνει σε αυτό το ασφυκτικό δίλημμα που ευθύνεται για την κατάστασή μου. Είναι η γαμοαίσθηση πως και δημοψήφισμα να γινότανε θα ψήφιζα όχι με την κρυφή ελπίδα οι άλλοι να ψηφίσουν ναι. Όπως ακριβώς έκαναν και οι «βουλευτές» μας, εν ολίγοις. Μπρος γκρεμός και πίσω ρέμα. Εντελώς.

Στο προκείμενο, ο Σεμπάστιαν Μπάρυ έχει την ικανότητα μιας καθόλα συγκινητικής και συναισθηματικής γραφής που σε συνεπαίρνει, σε χώνει βαθιά στο αίσθημα του ήρωα του σε κάνει να συμπάσχεις κι ας μην ταυτίζεσαι. Αφηγήτρια σε πρώτο πρόσωπο η Λίλη Μπιρ, που μόλις έχει χάσει τον μονάκριβο εγγονό της και ξεκινά το μίτο της ζωής της από την αρχή, από την αναγκαστική μετανάστευση της στην Αμερική από την Ιρλανδία, όπου την κυνηγούσαν αυτή και τον αρραβωνιαστικό της για πολιτικούς λόγους, το θάνατο του πρώτου άντρα της, την εγκατάλειψη του δευτέρου, την απομάκρυνση από το γιο της, το μεγάλωμα του εγγονού. Η Λίλη Μπιρ είναι μια γυναίκα που βρίσκει πολλούς να της σταθούν στο δρόμο της, όσο μένει μόνη, μένει συνέχεια μόνη για να καταλήξει στα ογδόντα εννιά της, πλήρης ημερών και πόνων να μην κλαίγεται, παρά μέσα στο βαρύ πένθος της να γράφει νηφάλια και με γενναιότητα για τη ζωή της.

Το μυθιστόρημα είναι δυνατό, η ιστορία της Ιρλανδής Λίλη που είναι από τη «λάθος» πλευρά- ο πατέρας και ο αρραβωνιαστικός της ήταν αστυνομικοί «του Στέμματος»- και φτάνει στη γη της Επαγγελίας για να ζήσει, εξουθενωτικά αληθινή. Και η εμπλοκή των αγοριών της- του αδελφού, του γιου, του εγγονού- σε εξίσου παράλογους πολέμους με όλους τους άλλους το αποκορύφωμα μιας ζωής στιγματισμένης από πολιτικές αποφάσεις άλλων. Με λίγα λόγια ένα σπουδαίο βιβλίο.(less)

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Jul 04, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked up this book because my mother-in-law was reading it for her book club. They've been focusing on Booker prize nominees recently. Although I had a little trouble getting into this novel, I ultimately became engaged and admiring of Barry's project and especially of his prose style. After finishing I learned it is Barry's third book about members of the same Irish family who found themselves on the unpopular pro-British side of the troubles when the IRA rose to prominence after WWI. But "O...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Doreen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The narrator is 89-year-old Lily Bere. Over seventeen days after the death of her grandson, she recounts the major events of her life beginning with her childhood in Ireland and continuing through her adulthood in America.

America does not prove to be Canaan, the Biblical Promised Land. America is not a place of refuge since Lily's life and the lives of her loved ones are dominated by violence. Her story includes many of the historical events of the twentieth century (war, racial tensions). These...more The narrator is 89-year-old Lily Bere. Over seventeen days after the death of her grandson, she recounts the major events of her life beginning with her childhood in Ireland and continuing through her adulthood in America.

America does not prove to be Canaan, the Biblical Promised Land. America is not a place of refuge since Lily's life and the lives of her loved ones are dominated by violence. Her story includes many of the historical events of the twentieth century (war, racial tensions). These events are not detailed; the focus is on the damage they leave in their wake. Her presence in the wings of so many momentous events might seem far-fetched, but there is an emotional truth in Lily's narrative.

Lily is a character who will long remain with the reader. Her life story is full of hatred and vengefulness, but it is told by a humble, kind, non-judgmental, and compassionate woman. Her stoicism and indomitable will in the face of multiple bereavements and separations and hardships is remarkable, as is her joy in small pleasures. Lily attributes all of these qualities to Mrs. Wolohan, her long-time employer, not realizing she herself possesses them in abundance.

Obviously, this is a novel of memory and remembrance. Early in her "confession" Lily mentions that "There is no inoculation against [memory]" (83). It is this very remembering that brings her deliverance: "To remember sometimes is a great sorrow, but when the remembering has been done, there comes afterwards a very curious peacefulness. Because you have planted your flag on the summit of the sorrow. You have climbed it" (217).

Barry's language is wonderfully poetic. The figurative diction is reminiscent of T. S. Eliot: "The sea sat out on the beach like a thousand patients at a surgery, still, vexed, worrisome" (253) and "the sun was falling away under the table of the world, like a drinking man" (254). The book is worth a re-read just to savour the lyricism.

Sebastian Barry has appeared on the Man Booker lists three times. I predict that someday he WILL win this award or the Nobel Prize for Literature.(less)

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Feb 18, 2012 TheGirlBytheSeaofCortez rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: booker-nominees-and-winners, books-to-read-more-than-once, contemporary-authors, irish-literature, literary-fiction

I know a lot of people who weren’t familiar with Sebastian Barry’s work until the publication of the Booker shortlisted The Secret Scripture. Barry, however, has been around for quite some time. He’s written five novels now, a host of plays, and three poetry collections, and he’s collected several awards for his writing including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Independent Bookseller’s Prize, and the Irish Book Awards Prize for “Best Novel.” Those of us who’re familiar with his work kno...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Adrian White rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I first tried reading Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way, I had something of an adverse reaction and put it down; or rather, I threw it down, shouting why the fuck couldn't he just write one simple sentence without all that flowery, roundabout, get-there-in-the-end fluff and nonsense? In other words, there was something of a culture clash as this English boy found the Irish boy's use of language to be quite an alien thing. It wasn't until I heard Sebastian Barry read from the book that I got...more When I first tried reading Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way, I had something of an adverse reaction and put it down; or rather, I threw it down, shouting why the fuck couldn't he just write one simple sentence without all that flowery, roundabout, get-there-in-the-end fluff and nonsense? In other words, there was something of a culture clash as this English boy found the Irish boy's use of language to be quite an alien thing. It wasn't until I heard Sebastian Barry read from the book that I got it, that I had an aaahh moment and realised that, although the words were English, this was a different language, an alien language to me and it was there to be embraced in the same way as, for example, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. Now, you might well think that was a bit slow of me and you'd probably be right; I might never have got it if Sebastian wasn't such an accomplished, charming and theatrical reader of his work. The experience reminded me of when I first read John McGahern's Amongst Women, more or less on publication and while I still lived in England. I loved the book but there were many mysteries to me that weren't revealed until I read it a second time, having left England to live in Ireland. Moran in Amongst Women is a type of man that just doesn't exist in England; hell - the Irish would tell you we can't even pronounce the name correctly. If Moran was exiled to England he'd no longer be the man he was in Ireland.

But now, having read Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture and returned to and enjoyed A Long Long Way, I luxuriate in his language. In his latest book, On Canaan's Side, there are many sentences that stop me dead in admiration: 'The world was made for lesser mortals generally.' How loaded are those words? How - yes - poetic? And yet, still, how alien? Simple language used in a way I'd never dream of. And the measured pace of the storytelling: once again we have some old biddy looking back on her life, just as in The Secret Scripture and, before that, in Annie Dunne. But what a life and what a story to tell: come here, and let me tell ya . . .

Having enjoyed such success over the past few years, there's no need for Sebastian Barry to attempt to emulate anybody, but On Canaan's Side has something of the feel of Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn - the jacket image perhaps or the leaving of Ireland for the Promised Land of the United States. I didn't mind Brooklyn but it didn't exactly blow me away me either. It smacked of striving too hard for commercial success - a kind of Tóibín-Lite - and, while it started with a nod towards William Trevor's Felicia's Journey, it ended up sailing closer to Maeve Binchy's Echoes.

I thought as I read (and loved) Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light that he was maybe trying to 'do a Sebastian Barry' with the language he used - or rather, with the way he used the language - and that this was no bad thing. There was also that south Dublin/Wicklow setting and yet another old dear reminiscing on a long life lived on foreign shores. The story was on a modest, less epic and more intimate scale than, for example, The Star of the Sea, but there was no harm in that and I've a feeling Joseph O'Connor was setting himself a writerly challenge that he passed with apparent ease but which must have taken a lot of very, very hard work.

These Irish boys - they know how to evoke and to suggest, how to transport their reader to a different land in the way that music takes us to different places in our minds, be it with the words of a ballad or a tune or a melody. And I wish I could do it too.

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Nov 28, 2011 Marleen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On the first day after her grandson Billy dies, Lilly Bere, eighty-nine years old, starts writing down the story of her life before she intends to put an end to it.
Over the next seventeen days she writes in her accounts book a story that starts in Ireland before World War I and ends in America during the gulf war.
Before Lilly was twenty years old she had to flee Ireland with the man she loved when the violence let loose in the country is threatening her and Tadg Bere’s lives.
Once in America life...more On the first day after her grandson Billy dies, Lilly Bere, eighty-nine years old, starts writing down the story of her life before she intends to put an end to it.
Over the next seventeen days she writes in her accounts book a story that starts in Ireland before World War I and ends in America during the gulf war.
Before Lilly was twenty years old she had to flee Ireland with the man she loved when the violence let loose in the country is threatening her and Tadg Bere’s lives.
Once in America life is anything but straightforward as the violence from home follows the young pair across the Atlantic.
Lilly soon finds herself alone and trying to make a life for herself. A life that will be filled with love, loss, friendships and betrayals. A life that will somehow forever be touched by the wars men find themselves caught up in.
I could give a lot more detail about this story, but I don’t think I should. One of the pleasures in reading this book is discovering how Lilly finds her way through life. How she ends up where she is, mourning the loss of her grandson.
Lilly tells her story with great detachment. She rarely dwells on emotions and I found myself reading between the lines to get to feelings that lay below the apparently dispassionate narration.
Because of this detachment it took me a while to get really involved in the story. I think I was about a quarter into the book before I found myself caring about Lilly and what was happening to her. But once I did I found it increasingly hard to put the book down. From not really being interested at all I had gone to being completely invested in Lilly’s life and the resilience of this character.
As Barry takes the reader on a journey through almost a century of history and changes in the world, he also shows the reader how little some things change. History repeats itself time and again until, at last, it’s just too much for even the strongest human spirit to endure.
This is a book I needed to reflect upon for a while once I finished it. Its beautiful and understated tone almost hides the poignancy in its words. Almost, but not quite.
If I could, I'd rate this book 4.5 stars.

“That they wouldn’t allow us to cross into Canaan, but would follow us over the river and kill him on Canaan’s side. The land of refuge itself.”

“We may be immune to typhoid, tetanus, chickenpox, diphtheria, but never memory. There is no inoculation against that.”

“It is possible that no one can tell you anything that you don’t already know. The brain, some part of the brain has picked up the information already, but not the ‘top’ brain, not the bit that thinks it knows things.”
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Oct 27, 2011 Elizabeth K. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-new-reads

This was lovely and charming and beautifully written, also sad. It's a short novel taking place over the course of just a few days, as an elderly woman reflecting back on the significant people and events of her life. One thing I loved about it is that her recollections are made with an explicit awareness that her memories are informed and altered by the very act of retelling them. The writing is exquisite, and it's the kind of book that makes you want to remember specific observations and phras...more

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Oct 04, 2011 Lakis Fourouklas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To put it simply: Sebastian Barry writes so beautifully, so poetically, that when I read his books I find myself almost ashamed to admit that I’m also a writer – and a jealous one at that. His prose is so deeply humane and so well-crafted that almost reads like verse; verse that makes you want to cry; no, not from sorrow, but from joy, for having the privilege of reading it. I’m not implying that the subject matters with which the good author is preoccupied are pleasant, quite the opposite, they...more To put it simply: Sebastian Barry writes so beautifully, so poetically, that when I read his books I find myself almost ashamed to admit that I’m also a writer – and a jealous one at that. His prose is so deeply humane and so well-crafted that almost reads like verse; verse that makes you want to cry; no, not from sorrow, but from joy, for having the privilege of reading it. I’m not implying that the subject matters with which the good author is preoccupied are pleasant, quite the opposite, they float in sadness, yet the way he narrates them do not bring much sorrow to the reader’s heart. He seems, in a magical way, to grab the latter by the hand and lead him on to a journey through the wide paths of history, a history that touches everything and everyone in different ways; personal and impersonal at the same time.
This is the story of Lilly Berre, an eighty-nine year old woman, whose grandson Bill just died, and who now just sits and writes down her memoirs, reliving through them a long life full of sorrows and a few touches of joy. The narrator talks in a direct and almost oral way about love and war, about country and home, and about loss, old age and death. And she doesn’t complain about anything, even just a little bit, although she has every right to do so, given the way the fates have treated her.
Her memories, despite her age, are crystal clear, as they are deeply engraved on her tortured soul. She remembers a father whom she loved too much, but whose choices have caused her endless troubles but also saved her life. She remembers her first big love, the man with whom she escaped from Ireland to America, just after the First World War, and whose face reminded her of a Van Gogh painting. She remembers her brother, like a hazy picture of times long gone and who died during that very same war. She remembers everything, and everything she writes, like a living testament, even though she says she hates writing. She needs to tell everything, to get it out of her breast, because: “We are not immune to memory.”
Even though “the past is a crying child”, as she writes somewhere in this seventeen day long monologue, she never cries: “I am cold because I cannot find my heart,” she’s quick to point out. However, she’s not really cold, she’s just hurt, as she’s lived an eventful life, but nevertheless poor where results were concerned. She worked a lot, she fought hard for a better tomorrow, she spent years and years in fear and whatever she won she lost, whomever she loved she buried. And yet not a single word of complain ever escapes her lips. Lilly is a woman full of patience, one of those unique and rarely met souls that can only feel compassion for the others, and who know how to forgive. One could say that her way of thinking and living sounds kind of fatalistic, and one would be wrong. Her memories are sad, but not bitter, and her memories are her life. Writing them down is what keeps her alive; her resilience is her power.
“Tears have a better character cried alone,” she thinks, and that’s why she mourns her loss on her own and in the quiet. And her tears turn into pearls of wisdom and humanity. As Joe, one of the main characters says, we “live in a big box of fear.” Lilly takes this fear and turns it into power; she takes that power and turns it into a story – the story we are now holding in our hands.
Absolutely brilliant.
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Feb 22, 2013 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I picked up this book in galley format from a publishing rep and for some reason, just now set out to read it. I imagine the finished product is quite similar. At any rate, I hope it is not very much changed.

This is a book which combines some of the finest literary traditions in one stew: the first-person memoir/narrative, the Irish novel, and the setting of twentieth-century America. The book reads as old-fashioned, in a word, but I would give the same reverence to Joyce's Dubliners ...more

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Oct 25, 2011 Vivian Valvano rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved the narrator, Lilly. (She was born Lilly Dunne, daughter of the unforgettable James Dunne, Chief Supt. of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, originally created in Barry's THE STEWARD OF CHRISTENDOM; she was thus the sister of Willie, Annie, and Maud, known to readers of STEWARD and some of Barry's previous novels.) I loved the way the narrative was set up - as 17 days of Lilly mourning her grandson, with her memories of her past reflected on during those days. I especially loved the way Bar...more

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Sep 11, 2011 Elaine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

I really wanted to love this book, with its naive yet poetic, rhythmic voice, but I could not. Instead, doubts clawed at me (what a spry crew of seniors up through nonagenerians we have in Lilly Bere, Mr. Nolan, Mr. Eugenides, etc. -- is it possible that an 89 year old could write her autobiography, including of her various forays from Bridgehampton beachside to village shops, and not have physical frailty, apart from the oddly featured constipation, enter into it? Are there too many coincidence...more I really wanted to love this book, with its naive yet poetic, rhythmic voice, but I could not. Instead, doubts clawed at me (what a spry crew of seniors up through nonagenerians we have in Lilly Bere, Mr. Nolan, Mr. Eugenides, etc. -- is it possible that an 89 year old could write her autobiography, including of her various forays from Bridgehampton beachside to village shops, and not have physical frailty, apart from the oddly featured constipation, enter into it? Are there too many coincidences -- people running into each other as if all of the Eastern half of the United States were an Irish village -- or is that the precise point of the book?).

I think these doubts find a place because, despite the sweeping scope (a century of war, immigration, race relations), there is less narrative impulse and characterization than there is poetry. Lilly herself is an enigma, pretty, good -- too good -- she does not have a wicked or ungenerous impulse in the entire book, which makes her trying at the least and ahistorical at the most (an Irish girl in 1920s Cleveland without even a qualm of prejudice, a devoted servant to the great for 60 years without an inkling of class envy or resentment), and long suffering. She is done to, not doing, for nearly a century -- from when her brother's friend asks her out and then gets her blacklisted, and her father sends her away to a foreign land, until the very end, when for the first time in 89 years, we sense agency. This lack of center, as well as the fairy tale Bridgehampton of benign elderly that surround Lilly in her later years, gives the book -- despite its many tragedies -- a dulled. wrapped in cotton sensation, no real pain gets through all the niceness, and all the elaborately metaphoric language. (At one point, the sea viewed from the distance is described as being like a thousand patients waiting nervously in a doctor's surgery -- an odd, incongruent simile, especially in good old Lilly's mouth, but typical of the book, which tends to use many words sometimes for the sheer sake of using them without regard to what Lilly's 90 year old voice might actually sound like).

And yet, I give it 3 stars for virtuoso moments, and for the germ of a bold original story in the tale of Lilly, Cassie Blake, Cleveland in the 30s, Joe Kinderman and Mike Scopello, and the relationships between them all. Those episodes have a heft and a freshness lost in the rest (the theme that WWI and Vietnam drove people mad and wasted young lives is a considerably less fresh topic, and extending that chorus of wanton destruction of youth to the first Iraq war is perhaps a bit of stretch -- but it would have defied sense to make Lilly live on past 100 to see the second Iraq war, which one sensed was Barry's true subject, so Kuwait had to stand in). But the racial and ethnic story of the Cleveland years is new, and actually, for the only time all book, those sections deliver some real tension and punch. Too bad they are only an episode in a book that seems longer than it is.(less)

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Mar 27, 2013 Marianne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed-copy-returned

On Canaan’s Side is the 7th novel by Irish author Sebastian Barry and is, deservedly, winner of the 2012 Walter Scott Prize. It was also long-listed for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Lilly Bere (whom fans of Barry’s work will recognise as the youngest daughter of Thomas Dunne from The Steward Of Christendom, sister of Willie, Maud and Annie Dunne) writes, over the seventeen days since she has buried her beloved and troubled grandson, Bill, her thoughts about her life of almost ninety years. Through...more On Canaan’s Side is the 7th novel by Irish author Sebastian Barry and is, deservedly, winner of the 2012 Walter Scott Prize. It was also long-listed for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Lilly Bere (whom fans of Barry’s work will recognise as the youngest daughter of Thomas Dunne from The Steward Of Christendom, sister of Willie, Maud and Annie Dunne) writes, over the seventeen days since she has buried her beloved and troubled grandson, Bill, her thoughts about her life of almost ninety years. Through Lilly’s reminiscences, we learn of her childhood in Ireland, her escape to America with her fiancé Tadg, her marriage to, and abandonment by the mysterious Joe, and the raising her son Ed and her grandson Bill. Lilly encounters hardship, fear, great loss and heartbreak, but also incredible generosity, kindness and small victories. Despite intimacies and closeness, Lilly is not allowed to really know the significant men in her life (Thomas, Tadg, Joe, Ed, Bill and Mr Nolan), often until it was far too late, if at all, yet she shows grace, courage, an enormous capacity for forgiveness and rejects opportunities for revenge. With his prose, some of it achingly beautiful, Barry evokes atmosphere, mood and emotion, and comments on the unspoken tragedies of wars and rebellions. Some favourite quotes: “I wonder if I were to have an X-ray at the little hospital, would the machine see my grief? Is it like a rust, a rheum about the heart?” “…. beamed out a smile as good as the Wicklow lighthouse when at last it turns its great arc towards you.” “We may be immune to typhoid, tetanus, chicken pox, diphtheria, but never memory. There is no inoculation against that.” “The gift of life, oftentimes so difficult to accept, the horse whose teeth we are so often inclined to inspect.” “To remember sometimes is a great sorrow, but when the remembering has been done, there comes afterward a very curious peacefulness. Because you have planted your flag on the summit of sorrow. You have climbed it.” A wonderful story, beautifully written. (less)

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Feb 08, 2013 Els rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

Net zoals in the secret scripture, horen we de inner voice van een oude vrouw die terug kijkt op haar leven en die in haar eigen frêle, breekbare stem tegelijk harde verhalen vertelt.
Lilly Dunne (een van de dunnes - moet dringend Annie Dunne op mijn want to read list zetten!) vertelt haar verhaal tegen de historische achtergrond van landen en oorlogen. America is niet het beloofde land maar blijkt een land waarin identiteit en zekerheid vluchtige begrippen zijn. En hoewel we identiteit, ras, af...more

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Oct 20, 2011 Frank rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish-authors

In most twentieth-century colonial wars of independence there are typically the colonial overlords (the foreigners, the "others", "them") and the natives, (the indigenous people, "our own", "us"). But at least two smaller groups (with varying degree of overlap) are also a part of the mix: the colonists who left the "home country" and may have been settled for generations in a new land (new to them, not the indigenous people), and those indigenous people who worked for, if not outright supported,...more

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May 12, 2013 Julie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, author_male, book-club_normal, pub_post-1945, type_fiction, audio

As I read (or more precisely, listened to) Sebastian Barry’s novel, I had trouble putting my finger on just what I didn’t like about it. I did like the form of the novel, a sort of diary written by an old woman in which she looks back at her long life. I really loved the way Barry described people, for instance, a man operating a ride at an amusement park was described as someone who “hadn’t had his ears pinned down properly.” Cassie, the protagonist’s best friend, was described as a woman who w...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish

I love to cook. I do. I have a binder where I carry recipes and notes. I lug it from its shelf. A history of sorts and an old friend who soothes. I may have to add this advice, spoken to the main character in this wonderful book:

'Heat is how that pot thinks, Lilly. It is like my grandma singing a lullaby, not too loud so you keep sleep away, not too soft and baby can't hear the words. Try and hear the heat, Lilly. Hear the pot thinking. You hear it, you hear it? It's there. You will. And when yo...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Richard Lewis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As much as I enjoy his writing style, as poetic as it is, like finding a trunk full of sentimental treasures tucked away in the back of your closet, or in the garage, of for those who might still have them, in the attic, it is just that with this novel. Few writers that I'm familiar with can capture our inner workings as well as Sebastian Barry, of that there's no doubt. You can't help but nod in agreement, or sigh, when you read the gems he crafts with language.

But the sorrow and sadness are s...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Breid rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the most exquisitely written book, beautiful prose, wonderfully evocative, I would give it 10 stars if I could. I have taken my time reading this, savouring each and every paragraph. I have really enjoyed his plays, but this is the first novel by Sebastian Barry that I have read, and I am looking forward to reading more. I was not sure if I was going to like this novel when I read the synopsis, but it has surpassed my expectations, it is just wonderful.

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